Asus PC Probe II will not uninstall...how to get rid of it???

[wahnula]

Howdy,

I recently recovered from a serious hardware failure, managed to get everything up & running with a repair install of XP Pro, added in SP3 afterwards. It's a modern system and everything is working fine now, except I can't get Asus' PC Probe II utility running or, more alarmingly, uninstall it.

I receive an error dialog stating "The InstallShield Engine (Kernel.exe) could not be launched. Access is denied." PC Probe does not load, giving a litany of "Enumerate Device Win32_BIOSfail" with the last word changing to about a dozen different entries.

To test the uninstaller, I uninstalled a few programs without incident. Then I tried to re-install PC Probe II, from a new source, another dialog pops up with the same message. I really like the functionality of this utility, and would like to get it back up and running, or if that option doesn't exist at least get rid of it.

I followed a lead from Google that led me to run dcomcnfg, but the Component Services dialog goes away when I double-click "Computers". I'd like to avoid a clean install, but if that's what it takes so be it. Thanks as always.


Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[wahnula]

I found a few other programs that, when I went to uninstall them, gave me an MSI error. I followed the directions at

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315346

and still no joy. Their recommendation is to do what I already did, a repair install of XP.

There's other problems, such as the Network Connections dialog reading "Empty". In Windows Firewall==>Advanced, it says "The network connections have become corrupted, to fix this, Restore Defaults..." which does nothing. I think it's hosed, although I am on the Internet now despite not having any "Network Connections".

It's been 18 months anyway since I built the system. I will hold off for a while to see if any genius appears here with an answer, but I'm not getting my hopes up. No worries, everything is backed up and the system is still running so I can get everything off of it that I care about.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[linney]

A repair install, by its nature, tries to save your settings and programs from before the install. This however may also result in corruption from profiles and even some registry errors being copied across.

If it was just PC Probe that was causing you a problem, I would suggest the old fashion way of cleaning it out, via deleting every folder belonging to it and deleting every entry in the registry mentioning "PC Probe". Then try to re-install it.

As you seem to have other faults then I think I would bite the bullet and reformat and do a clean install. But such action will not fix any hardware problems so it might pay to check for faulty RAM and Hard Drive issues first?


Description of the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributable

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=120486

How to troubleshoot missing network connections icons in Windows Server 2003 and in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;825826

281625 - Make New Connection Wizard Selections Are Unavailable and Other Issues Occur with the Network Connections Folder

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;281625

254631- Some Network and Dial-Up Connections Icons May Be Missing

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;254631

269019 - "Network and Dial-up Connections" Folder Icons Missing

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;269019

329050 - Troubleshooting Missing Network and Dial-Up Connections Icons

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;329050

Network Connections window is empty. Void. Nowt.
thread779-622752

 

[BadBigBen]

Error message: IKERNEL.EXE Could Not be Launched

http://www.laplink.com/support/kb/article.asp?ID=671

Error message when you try to install a product that uses the InstallShield installer on a computer that is running Administrator's Pak: "The InstallShield Engine (ikernel.exe) could not be launched"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935081

Q110719: The InstallShield Engine (iKernel.exe) Could Not Be Launched. Access Is Denied.

http://consumerdocs.installshield.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=Q110719&sliceId=1

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[wahnula]

What happened was I got some corruption in my RAID 1 array, I couldn't even get into the Recovery Console to run chkdsk. I booted to my Vista drive and its chkdsk sorted out the array, but resulted in some XP problems, hence the repair install.

I've copied anything & everything I could possibly need over to backup, I'm going to do the deed now. It's not just the one program; MSI is hosed, and that's enough reason for me to clean-install. Thanks for the links and your time.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[wahnula]

Ben, thanks for the links, I've tried everything they mention. Like I said earlier, if it's a buggy install I might as well get rid of it. No whining about my data, my emails, wah, wah, wah ...I've got it covered. If it was just a single complaint I might spend some time troubleshooting and fixing but it's several issues across the OS...time for a fresh start!

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[BadBigBen]

Well, if you got everything backed up (data and eMails), and the problems are across the OS, then go ahead and nuke the install and start afresh...

In case you did not know Outlook stores emails & contacts in the following folders:

%user profile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

%User Profile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

by backing these up and importing them later in the new install of Outlook, you will get the emails and contacts back, but not the Login info (I've not figured out how to get at them yet - for disaster recovery this would be helpful)...

have phun...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[wahnula]

All my data stores reside on the data array...so I'm OK there, just took a fresh backup of the array in the event of disaster recovery. I save my Account info as an .iaf file, and importing it is a snap. Of course I use OE at home and that option mat not be available to Outlook users...I will check and find out.

On the XP front, got it all done, set it up the way I like it, then for some reason the *&%# taskbar decides to double in size and I can't return it to normal (no matter how much I try) unless "Quick Launch" is disabled, but dang it, I WANT Quick Launch, so I tried a system restore to a few minutes before it happened, now XP is in a pre-boot loop . I see nothing amiss while exploring XP's partition from Vista, but I'll give it a reload (again) this evening unless someone knows how to get out of the pre-boot loop.

And by the way, has "Last Known Good Configuration" ever worked for ANYONE???

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[linney]

Maybe this is a case of being too late as it refers to the size of icons in the Quick Launch Toolbar causing the Taskbar to double in size. Save it for when you get XP back and running.

XP Desktop Taskbar doubles in size when Quicklaunch added
thread779-1230176

As far as XP's current state is concerned, as you have just done a System Restore, and re-installed XP (I think?), you can either redo XP again, or try Safe Mode to see if it will boot from there, if it does you may be able to use the "Undo" function of System Restore.

Running the Recovery Console and performing ChkDsk /r may help.

An easy to follow recovery console description when unable to start computer due to corrupt registry.

http://www.digitalwebcast.com/2002/03_mar/tutorials/cw_boot_toot.htm

This is a layman's version of Q307545 in simple language.



"Last Known......", is more for when a faulty driver install is preventing XP from booting as it reverts the machine back to before the faulty driver was installed thus not loading the faulty driver.

 

[wahnula]

linney,

I did a little research on the "double wide taskbar issue" and found lots of stuff that did not work. Hence, the System Restore, and there must have been some issue with Windows (still) as the endless loop resulted, even in Safe Mode. So, I could not have made any changes if I had wanted to.

There were other indications that Windows was wonky. Not sure, but it might have been related to the fact that Windows was setup on one partition and Data on the other, so during Windows Setup I was reluctant to "delete the partition" just choosing to quick-format the partition during install.

Next time, I booted into Vista, and did a slow format of the partition. Windows installed faster and more normally into the blank partition and I have had no wonky behavior at all.

Tony

Users helping Users...