Uninstall Bitdefender On A Locked Up Computer

alexm

I have gotten a new laptop about three months ago (Dell with VISTA home premium pre-installed)and installed Bitdefender 2010 internet security on it around the end of November. Shortly after my entire laptop locked up and began running at 100% CPU with nothing visibly open (in safe mode this does not occur). I know this now to be the result of a clash of anti-virus systems (Bitdefender and the trial that came with my laptop) and I easily uninstalled the program that came with my laptop which momentarily solved the problem of my system running at 100%; only to have the problem reemerge a few weeks later. Burt in those few weeks that the laptop worked I was experiencing my internet loading as a blank page with the exception of my google home page.

If I uninstall Bitdefender and then reinstall it I'm certain that these problems will go away. The trouble is, I have to uninstall it in safe mode otherwise my laptop freezes or I get nowhere due to the high CPU. Unfortunately i can't seem to get around the fact that windows installer does not work in safe mode.

Any help anyone can give would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

alexcrist

Hello cityandcolour,

In Windows Vista, the Microsoft Installer service should be running, so the BitDefender Uninstall Tool should be running also. The MS Installer service couldn't run in SafeMode under Windows XP, but in Vista, as far as I know, it's running.

If you can't get it running, then follow these steps:

- restart your system in SafeMode

- open Services (Administrative tools -> Services)

- look for and disable the BitDefender services (BitDefender Virus Shield and BitDefender Live Update)

- restart your system normally. Now BitDefender shouldn't start (you will still see it in System Tray, but it should be completely disabled).

- Use the BitDefender Uninstall tool

- restart your system

- reinstall BitDefender

- restart your system

- update and register (restart again if required)

Please post if this solves your problem.

Cris.

alexm

does the service show up with a different name from bitdefender? Because I can see no "BitDefender Virus Shield" and "BitDefender Live Update" in my services.

So in short unfortunately that did not work.

alexcrist

I misspelled the Update service. It's BitDefender Desktop Update Service. The other one is correct.

The are 4 BitDefender services installed, all starting with BitDefender. The 2 named above are the only ones which start Automatically, the other 2 are set to start manually (are started when needed). All services should be visible (they are not hidden in any way).

So the only explanation that comes to my mind is that you didn't get to the correct Services list.

In Windows 7, the Services window looks like this:

In Windows Vista, that window has that exact same layout.

Did you, by any chance, look in TaskManager (Services tab)? There you won't see these names (you will see other names for all services). To open the Services window from TaskManager, on the Services tab, click on the Services button (lower right corner of the window).

Cris.