McAfee uninstall -> Windows Firewall won't turn on -> Network Reset -> VSS component error

rorytheherb

Estimable
Feb 11, 2014
3
0
4,510
Hello all,
I have encountered an issue on my girlfriend's Windows 10 home laptop (Sony VAIO ca. 2015, i5 8GB ram). It was slow so we decided to uninstall her McAfee antivirus. She is a paid subscriber so we figured we could simply reinstall later if she wanted to. I looked through the installed programs and there was nothing suspicious, but the machine was running unduly slowly in my opinion.

I did not disable the McAfee antivirus (now I think maybe I should have) before uninstalling all the McAfee programs through the Add/remove programs in Control Panel and rebooting.

After rebooting, the network adapter was unable to connect or see any wifi connections. In Windows Defender, the flag is present to restart Windows Firewall, but clicking to do so is ineffectual.

My next step was to "Network reset" under settings, so after 5 minutes Windows reset the network and rebooted. Upon logging back in, we encountered an error regarding the Volume Shadowcopy Service (VSS) components needed for System Restore.

I suspect both the VSS error and the Firewall issue have to do with handing over the security duties from McAffee to Defender.

Later tonight I will try to resolve this issue. My plan at the moment is going to be to reinstall McAffee, and then turn it off manually, and then enable Windows Defender to manage the Windows Firewall. I am weary of the VSS problem, however, since it's never nice to be without the ability to revert to a restore point. (I've heard VSS has actually been broken since Windows 7...)

If anyone has any suggestions or has run into this problem before, I am eager to hear any advice. I have the feeling this kind of thing is all too common when uninstalling antivirus suites.

Apologies in advance for not being able to provide the details of the error numbers at the moment. I should be able to reproduce them later tonight if needed.

-Rory
 
Solution
Could be some buggy update, a resource conflict, or perhaps just some misconfiguration.

Before doing anything else use Task Manager, Performance Monitor, and Resource Monitor to observe what is running on her laptop and what resources are being used, what is using those resources, and to what extent.

Could be some buggy update, a resource conflict, or perhaps just some misconfiguration.

Before doing anything else use Task Manager, Performance Monitor, and Resource Monitor to observe what is running on her laptop and what resources are being used, what is using those resources, and to what extent.

 
Solution