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Symptoms: After installing XP Service Pack 3, Device Manger is empty; the Network Connections panel is empty; there are no Network connection icons; and/or there is problematic or no Wireless or Ethernet connectivity; the Safely Remove Hardware icon no longer appears; USB devices no longer function, including mice. You may not have all of these symptoms, only some of them.


N.B. --- All emphasis in the above is mine.
See also: http://www.computerworld.com/action/art ... _AM&nlid=1


My "Fix"
If you have installed XP SP3 without taking the steps above, this massive registry corruption can be cured. This is decidedly not trivial; if you feel uncomfortable with the steps below, wait until Symantec releases a fix, or contact Microsoft for free XP SP3 support.

Download RegSeeker 1.55.zip: http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Re ... 35382760/1

• Right click on a blank area of your desktop, click "New", "Folder", and then Rename it to "RegSeeker".
• Unzip/extract your download of RegSeeker.zip to that new folder.
• Either ensure that your antivirus, any script blocking feature, and Norton's System Protection feature are all disabled; or, do this in Safe Mode. Check in Safe Mode that all three features -- antivirus, script blocking, and self protection -- are in fact disabled or not active.
• Launch RegSeeker.
• Click on 'Find in Registry' at the top.
• In the 'Search for:' space enter: $%&'(
• Then press 'Search!'.
• Once the search has finished, highlight any one entry with a single left click.
• Then click on 'Select' at the bottom.
• In the menu that pops up click on 'Select all'.
• Now right click anywhere on the yellow highlighted area 'Delete selected items'.
• Once they have all been deleted, Search again, exactly as before. (It is not unusual for there to be 2,000+ entries).
• Keep Searching, Selecting all (as above) and Deleting, until all the $%&'( entries are gone.
• Click "Clean the Registry". Then click on "Auto Clean" at the bottom, then click on 'GO!' in the opening window.
• Close the program when it's finished.
• Reboot.
• You can reinstall your Norton product at this time if you uninstalled it as a fix atttempt earlier.

I upgraded to SP3 without knowing the Symantec issues. I found 1,731 instances of Keys with names starting with $%&'(

I tried deleting one of them manually, but encountered "Error deleting keys" using regedt32.exe.

When I attempted RegSeeker, it found and (apparently) deleted the keys as advertised. However, when I repeated the search, all the same keys returned, so RegSeeker is also unable to delete them (and won't tell you about it...). I was using an Admin account, so this isn't a permissions error.

When I tried to delete the value under the key, I also got an error "Unable to delete all specified values." So, I'm stuck until Symantec issues a fix tool. Any ideas?

I cannot reproduce the issue. The workaround discussed in "My Fix" has been used successfully by many folks. See this note I received this morning as one example of witnesses to the fact that my "Fix" will fix the issue: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20557912-

If you select Delete all, it does delete them in my testing. One thing that may prove confusing is that with each repeat of the cycle I discussed above, the entries will seemingly appear nearly identical. This is because they are very similar, and often identical entires, if the same entry is made in more than one Hive or more than one location within a Hive.

Your testing suggests that you still have System Protect from your antivirus active. Disable this during the cleanup. In fact, do the entire operation disconnected from the internet, and in Safe Mode. There are strong suggestions that other anti-malware products can interfere -- HIPS enabled third-party firewalls, and some active anti-trojan scanners.

It too would be worthwhile making a pass first with SUBINACL.EXE to avoid possible permission issues. Being an or the Administrator of the workstation is not sufficient to avoid permission problems. The "Access Denied" error is common. See Step #3, a small script to create using SUBINACL.EXE, in this Microsoft KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949377

Finally, you might want to take the other Workaround -- Uninstall SP3. You can do so using Add or Remove Programs; or that GUI approach or SPUNINST.EXE in Safe Mode; or using the BATCH SPUNINST feature in Recovery Console. Download the Network Installation Redistributable of XP SP3. Boot to Safe Mode (no networking), and check that all security products are disabled, including any third-party firewall. Check that the Norton/Symantec Self Protect feature is disabled, as I discussed how to do in the quoted passage above. Then reinstall SP3. By reverting the installation of XP SP3, you revert the registry hives to their undamaged, previous, state.

Couple of problems with the "MyFix" procedure:

1. The deletions of "$%&'(" entries in the registry space owned by Symantec will not be deleted (without any notice from RegSeeker, I might add) while the Norton Product Protection is active in the Norton Internet Security, Norton AntiVirus or Norton 360 products. You must disable this feature before running the RegSeeker procedure to delete these entries. In Norton Internet Security, this is done from the Options->Norton Internet Security menu options in the Home main menu tab, followed by unchecking the Turn On Protection For Norton Products option in the ensuing Norton Internet Security Options screen. Symantec recommends the Turn On Protection For Norton Products feature be restored after you have repaired the registry.

2. The Auto Clean button does not appear at the bottom of the RegSeeker Screen until the Clean The Registry option is selected from the menu at the left.

Both issues were covered in the instructions.
The "fix" as written, has helped numerous folks with the issue, and has been widely written about in the computer press.

Thank you for emphasizing some key points, but the comments were out of place here.
Please do not post comments in "Sticky" threads.

Update From Symantec -- 5/30/2008

Source: http://norton.lithium.com/norton/board/ ... 1624#M1624

~~~ Comment by Bill Castner ~~~

The Symantec manual steps uses REGEDIT to find the keys. If you try do this for thousands of keys I can assure you that you will soon become very tired of the whole mess. Until Symantec releases an automated tool, use my "Fix" at the top of this thread. It will save you hours.

Device Manager and Network Connections may be blank after you install Windows XP Service Pack 3 (30 May-08)
Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953791

====================================================================================================

[1] WinXP SP3 - Read all prerequisites for a successful installation
http://msmvps.com/blogs/harrywaldron/ar ... ation.aspx

Steps to take before you install WinXP SP3
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950717

A much better solution is to delete all Symantec products from your system. They used to be good, but I have found them to cause more problems then they solve in recent versions. I used to be a huge Norton/Symantec fan, now I advise people not to use their products.

Hello.

Just about one month ago, I installed SP3 on my desktop (XP Home Edition). While I had trouble installing it (it took 3 attempts), it appeared to have finally installed properly, and I did not notice any problems. About one week after that, for some reason, I checked Device Manager and saw that it was empty. At that time, I saw no correlation to the SP3 install. So I went through, did some research on the net, and found several things to try. Nothing worked.
I soon started seeing that icons were missing in the system tray; however, this had happened before, and I was able to "fix" by killing the Explorer process and restarting it. Again, no correlation to the SP3 install.
Last week, I needed to scan something from my HP all-in-one. It was the first time I needed to scan something in quite some while. I discovered that my scanner was not listed in My Computer, and attempts to scan by pressing the Scan button on the HP did not work.
While attempting to fix the scan problem, I then noticed that my audio had stopped working. It had worked that morning, so I assumed that it stopped working because of something I had done to try to fix the scan problem.
Anyway, after much frustration, and because my PC is over 6 years old and because it has been having strange problems this past year (most of which I have fixed, however), I ordered a new PC late this week because I was getting nowhere with this Device Manager and other problems....that is, until I saw your site this morning.
After running the RegSeeker program and deleting those entires (over 10,000 for my desktop!), Device Manager now works; my icons seem to come up with every reboot; the audio icon is included in that; and my speakers now work! Thank you very, very much for the fix! I just wish I had found it before I ordered that new PC, although it will be nice to have a new one anyway!
I still have not fixed my Scan problem, but at least I have fixed the other problems and am a lot closer, now, to solving the Scan problem.
One probably stupid question: I also installed SP3 on my laptop (XP Professional) and have had no problems. However, running RegSeeker has found well over 2000 of those bad registry entries. I assume I should also get rid of those? I definitely will, regardless of the answer, but just curious.
One other perhaps stupid question: the RegSeeker search found some entries under nVidia lines. There were only 5 of them (I think); I have not deleted those, yet, but will do so soon. I just deleted all of the ones with ControlSet in them. I assume that the nVidia lines also are corrupt?
Also, a comment: I have used RegSeeker for a long time; I also have used JV16 for an even longer time. While I used RegSeeker to find and delete those entries, I first checked with JV16, which also found over 10,000 entries. It took JV16 a noticeably much shorter length of time to find those entries compared to RegSeeker.
Thanks once again very much....the proposed fix did work indeed for my desktop!

Zermatt2, I'm tempted to split your post to its own, dedicated thread. Before I do so, tell us something: Do you have a Norton or Symantec application installed?

Robear,

I'm curious why you would like to split my post...did I do something wrong? Or was it too long? Just curious.

Anyway, I use Norton Internet Security 2008 on both my desktop as well as my laptop. Norton branded products are owned by Symantec.

Your post appeared to be about RegSeeker (only) as you didn't mention any Symantec/Norton applications in the post. As such, it would have been OT in this thread.

All right, then!

Ok, I see...sorry about that. I see why you could have gotten confused.

By the way, just wanted to let you know that I found your site going through a link on Windows Secret on Thursday.