ARGH!! (Venting Frustration, No Reply Needed)

[soubeagi]

My current problems may have started last week, when my antivirus program (AVG) notified me of something that it considered suspicious behavior - something that was being attempted by a file at C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SPOOL\DRIVERS\X64\3\OLD\1\PRINTCONFIG.DLL, and asked me what to do about it. The two options presented to me boiled down to either:

- I could allow this suspicious (but ill-defined) behavior to occur, while simultaneously telling AVG to ignore this suspicious behavior if it ever happened again in the future; or
- I could prohibit the suspicious activity, while simultaneously allowing AVG to rip the guts out of the program that was attempting it, thereby ensuring that the suspicious activity could never happen again.

Neither option appealed to me (especially since I strongly suspected this warning to be a false positive), so I honestly don't remember which option I ultimately picked. (Several days later, I attempted to reverse this action, anyway - but I'm getting ahead of the story.) A day or two after AVG's warning, I noticed an X over the audio icon in the tray, and a tooltip which said "The Audio Service is not running." (I don't know if this was related to AVG's actions, or just coincidental.) Clicking on the audio icon started a troubleshooter, which ended claiming "One or more audio service isn't running" (duh), and that it had attempted but failed to fix the problem.

My attempts to manually restart the Windows Audio service resulted in "Error 0x800706cc: The endpoint is a duplicate." Around this time, I noticed that my access to shared files and folders (I keep most of my important data on a dedicated server, to make it available no matter which computer I happen to be at) was behaving sluggishly, not finding all the machines on my network and taking several minutes to list the ones it could find. And, in the process of trying to diagnose this, I noticed that the Start screen live tiles had also stopped updating.

After researching all of these problems and finding no remedy for any of them that worked for me, I've reluctantly decided to blow up this machine (along with all my customizations) and reinstall the factory image (and all the other programs I use). This will undoubtedly be a lot of work, but even if I were to find a less drastic cure for all of this machine's problems, I don't think I could trust this machine any more without performing a full re-imaging.

I don't expect anyone reading this to have a cure for any of this machine's problems, and as I said, I don't think I'd be comfortable with any sort of patch job at this point; my main purpose in posting this is to vent my considerable frustration. For that opportunity, I thank you, and I apologize for wasting whatever time you spent reading this.

 

[adamf]

I don't know what your weather is like there but assuming it isn't too terrible I'd go outside, take a deep breath and then sit down, smoke a cig and relax a bit. Perhaps have a beer and listen to some music if that is your thing.

Reinstalling doesn't take long - only an hour or two. Then uninstall AGV.

Then tell us if your computer is working OK or not.

 

[sgage]

Why do people use AVG?

 

[soubeagi]

Reinstalling doesn't take long - only an hour or two.

True, but reinstalling and reconfiguring all my apps to my liking will take several additional hours, spread over the next two weeks or however long it takes me to run all of them and find all the settings changes I've made to them over the past months.

And, FYI, I tried the "refresh" option that's supposed to be less lethal to one's installed apps, but that also failed - after it wasted an hour and a half of my time chugging away for nothing.

Then tell us if your computer is working OK or not.

So far, I have Windows 8.1 reinstalled and running (with sound!), but now I have to reconnect it to the network, activate it, and reinstall the apps.

Why do people use AVG?

In my case, it's because they had the first widely available zero-cost AV solution (from 15+ years ago), and frankly I'm just more comfortable sticking with the program I know best. (I almost switched when they redesigned the UI a few years ago, but I got used to the redesign before I decided on a replacement.) Over the years, I've installed Norton, McAfee, Trend, Kaspersky, Panda, Avira, eSet, F-Prot, F-Secure, and probably a dozen others whose names I can't recall right now, both for myself and for various clients, but I keep coming back to AVG because I seem to have fewer problems with it than with the others. I realize that's probably contrary to your experience, but nevertheless it's true for me.

 

[oneeyed]

Why do people use AVG?

Like all other AVs, marketing mainly.

Back to the OP...
In the future whenever you get a warning from your AV, always wait and look for more information before clicking on anything. Google the warning message to make sure the suspect file really is malware and not a false positive. You can also download a 3rd party scanner different from the one you have installed (only the scanner not the whole suite), or use an online scanner like Virus Total, to get a second opinion.
All this takes a few minutes and can help you avoid such mishaps.

 

[David Bailey]

A suggestion for the future---

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

I use the Standard version.
Works good with boot menu option applied.

 

[soubeagi]

In the future whenever you get a warning from your AV, always wait and look for more information before clicking on anything. Google the warning message to make sure the suspect file really is malware and not a false positive. You can also download a 3rd party scanner different from the one you have installed (only the scanner not the whole suite), or use an online scanner like Virus Total, to get a second opinion.
All this takes a few minutes and can help you avoid such mishaps.

Not an option anymore with AVG unless you use another computer; AVG's virus dialogs now use the secure desktop, so essentially, you are forced to respond to the dialog before you are allowed to do any research to decide how you want to respond to the dialog.

Now, some more about why I still like AVG despite all this:

Some computer users engage in inherently dangerous behavior ("What the heck is this box? I guess I better click on it and see what happens.") and some don't. Fortunately, I'm in the latter group, so I really don't need much in the way of hand-holding or "protection from myself", and AVG doesn't bother me with a lot of that - but because of this, there are clients that I would never install AVG for; they need an AV product that's at least as obnoxious and "in your face" as the malware they're trying to protect against, but I don't. If it weren't for the fact that Windows essentially requires users to obtain and install an AV product, and complains until you do, I might not bother with any at all. I use AVG because it leaves me alone most of the time; I would get very frustrated with one that didn't.

 

[adamf]

So you like AGV because it does tell you to do things and you like AGV because it doesn't tell you to do things.

Makes sense to me. I like going to a sauna because they are hot and I don't like going to a sauna because they are hot.

 

[caperjack]

my 2 cents .away back when we all wanted a free antivirus avg was a good choice ,but now my opinion is, Microsoft security essentials for Vista and win7 ,and for win8 Microsoft Defender are now the best choice for the average user

 

[sgage]

my 2 cents .away back when we all wanted a free antivirus avg was a good choice ,but now my opinion is, Microsoft security essentials for Vista and win7 ,and for win8 Microsoft Defender are now the best choice for the average user

That was what I meant when I said "who uses AVG"... MSE is free, effective, and doesn't bog down your computer or otherwise mess up your computer.

 

[soubeagi]

So you like AGV because it does tell you to do things

First off, it's "AVG", not "AGV"; second, I don't think I ever said anything like that - and if I did, I didn't mean to.

and you like AGV because it doesn't tell you to do things.

Yes, I like AVG because on the rare occasions when it does bug me (current situation excepted), it's for a good reason.

my 2 cents .away back when we all wanted a free antivirus avg was a good choice ,but now my opinion is, Microsoft security essentials for Vista and win7 ,and for win8 Microsoft Defender are now the best choice for the average user

If I don't reinstall AVG, that's what I'll probably do - despite my reluctance to give Microsoft even more control over my life.

---

I don't know how this became an antivirus discussion, anyway; I can't say that the antivirus had anything at all to do with my problems, and now that I've gone back to the factory image, I guess we'll never know. I only mentioned AVG's action for the sake of completeness, because it was the last significant thing that happened on this machine before the problems started.

 

[caperjack]

my 2 cents .away back when we all wanted a free antivirus avg was a good choice ,but now my opinion is, Microsoft security essentials for Vista and win7 ,and for win8 Microsoft Defender are now the best choice for the average user

That was what I meant when I said "who uses AVG"... MSE is free, effective, and doesn't bog down your computer or otherwise mess up your computer.

yeah,i know ,I just had the same opinion and shared it in a longer statement .

 

[DustSailor]

Obviously everyone is going to have many opinions on this subject, but AVG has at times been known to cause crashes and slowdowns. This is probably true for all AVs. Perhaps the most stable one I've come across is Microsoft's own AVs - called Defender for Windows 8/8.1.

It doesn't always get the lesser malware that can get installed to a system, so it is important to use another tool to compliment it, such as Mbam from Malwarebytes. It is a manual scan, and free as well. Using both in tandem, I've never looked back. I liked Avast! for a time, but alas, it was never as stable as Microsoft's own. Though Defender doesn't seem to be 'perfect' perhaps, it works the best for me when coupled with Mbam. And the end decision is of course your own.

 

[mojo6563]

My current problems may have started last week, when my antivirus program (AVG) notified me of something that it considered suspicious behavior - something that was being attempted by a file at C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SPOOL\DRIVERS\X64\3\OLD\1\PRINTCONFIG.DLL, and asked me what to do about it.

Soubeagi -

It was the above that caught my attention ... I was going to go through the whole REFRESH procedure but boy .. your comment saved me a lot of time !! I did go back to the AVG "VIRUS" vault and restored now only that particular file but there were like 8 files that I had to restore and it appears I am up and running again .. This had happened right after the Windows update so not sure if that had anything to do with this ... I spent a good couple of hours going through several steps and a lot of research until I came across your entry here .. Incredible .. What a learning lesson with this one .. I tell everyone to make their backups and take snap shots of their operating system .. Of course I don't follow my own advise but because of all this will do it now .. I put too much faith into the RESTORE option that is for sure ...

Soubeagi - thank you again for saving me from much grief .. Others - if you are having the challenge of Control Panel not opening up or your audio service not starting consider going into AVG and restoring your files !!

 

[soubeagi]

My current problems may have started last week, when my antivirus program (AVG) notified me of something that it considered suspicious behavior - something that was being attempted by a file at C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SPOOL\DRIVERS\X64\3\OLD\1\PRINTCONFIG.DLL, and asked me what to do about it.

It was the above that caught my attention ... I was going to go through the whole REFRESH procedure but boy .. your comment saved me a lot of time !! I did go back to the AVG "VIRUS" vault and restored now only that particular file but there were like 8 files that I had to restore and it appears I am up and running again .. This had happened right after the Windows update so not sure if that had anything to do with this ...

Wow. My only reason for starting this thread was to blow off some steam, but it's nice to know that it actually helped someone else avoid the problems I've had. As I mentioned in my original post (but forgot to elaborate on), AVG's restore function didn't seem to help in my case, but that may be because I tried a lot of other fixes before this one - which, in turn, was because I didn't think that a file called PRINTCONFIG.DLL could be causing problems with the sound system. However, unlike your situation, when I did get back to AVG, I only found that one file in the Virus Vault - not the 8 that you mention.

And, as a status report for the others following this thread, my computer is about 95% recovered now.

 

[adamf]

And, as a status report for the others following this thread, my computer is about 95% recovered now.

Good news - GAV works OK then?

 

[soubeagi]

Good news - GAV works OK then?

Yeah, VGA works fine.

 

[legitom]

My current problems may have started last week, when my antivirus program (AVG) notified me of something that it considered suspicious behavior - something that was being attempted by a file at C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SPOOL\DRIVERS\X64\3\OLD\1\PRINTCONFIG.DLL, and asked me what to do about it. The two options presented to me boiled down to either:

- I could allow this suspicious (but ill-defined) behavior to occur, while simultaneously telling AVG to ignore this suspicious behavior if it ever happened again in the future; or
- I could prohibit the suspicious activity, while simultaneously allowing AVG to rip the guts out of the program that was attempting it, thereby ensuring that the suspicious activity could never happen again.

Neither option appealed to me (especially since I strongly suspected this warning to be a false positive), so I honestly don't remember which option I ultimately picked. (Several days later, I attempted to reverse this action, anyway - but I'm getting ahead of the story.) A day or two after AVG's warning, I noticed an X over the audio icon in the tray, and a tooltip which said "The Audio Service is not running." (I don't know if this was related to AVG's actions, or just coincidental.) Clicking on the audio icon started a troubleshooter, which ended claiming "One or more audio service isn't running" (duh), and that it had attempted but failed to fix the problem.

My attempts to manually restart the Windows Audio service resulted in "Error 0x800706cc: The endpoint is a duplicate." Around this time, I noticed that my access to shared files and folders (I keep most of my important data on a dedicated server, to make it available no matter which computer I happen to be at) was behaving sluggishly, not finding all the machines on my network and taking several minutes to list the ones it could find. And, in the process of trying to diagnose this, I noticed that the Start screen live tiles had also stopped updating.

After researching all of these problems and finding no remedy for any of them that worked for me, I've reluctantly decided to blow up this machine (along with all my customizations) and reinstall the factory image (and all the other programs I use). This will undoubtedly be a lot of work, but even if I were to find a less drastic cure for all of this machine's problems, I don't think I could trust this machine any more without performing a full re-imaging.

I don't expect anyone reading this to have a cure for any of this machine's problems, and as I said, I don't think I'd be comfortable with any sort of patch job at this point; my main purpose in posting this is to vent my considerable frustration. For that opportunity, I thank you, and I apologize for wasting whatever time you spent reading this.

I had to sign up to just tell you this, you are a genius. I had the exact same problem and I have AVG, just restore that "printer virus" and it will work. I know it's hard to believe, what a crap detection make sure to send for analysis. Look in details of that "virus" and you'll see many services, make sure to override the existing ones or it won't work.

 

[jpolacko]

Ever since high school when I was working on computers and doing all my computer and networking certification tests I used AVG and it's always been a great AV! I've used all versions. Free. Professional. Server. Internet Security. All great! But here as of late I have ran into false positives where it would pick up system files and say they were suspicious and wanted me to delete them as much as I didn't want to I switched to F Secure for my AV and never had a issue and I have wrote several Virus codes (Not for bad!) to test and see if F Secure picked up and sure enough it did and quickly and got it FREE from my ISP. Just thought I would put my two cents in as well.

 

[Varnam]

make sure to override the existing ones or it won't work.

I did not override the existing ones. What do I do now?