Interesting phenomena when un-installing CounterSpyware

[Derek N]

I have been running Sunbelt's "CounterSpyware" alongside Microsoft's
"AntiSpyware". To date there has not been any problems.
However, today I experienced a problem with CounterSpy and decided to
un-install it (via "Add & Remove Programs").
The computer hung on re-boot, the "Task Manager/Performance showed 100%,
with gcasDtServ.exe having 99% of CPU.
The computer hung when booting into Safe Mode. Using a second computer I
traced gcasDtServ.exe to C:\Program Files\Microsoft AntiSpyware.
Eventually with Windows Explorer I managed to rename the Microsoft
AntiSpyware folder on the first computer and rebooted.
When I rebooted the problem was solved, I have also un-installed MS
AntiSpyware and all is now well.

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Nasty. When you said no observed problems--I take it that definition
updates for Microsoft Antispyware had been routine? We've had a number of
posts where folks with both products installed seemed to have trouble
getting Microsoft Antispyware to update.

 

[Derek N]

Hi Bill,
Yes I had experienced not being able to update with both computers, but
after re-installing the programme it cleared and was corrected on both
computers. As this was not a desperate situation I didn't report it.
However, I had experienced the problem of un-installing CounterSpyware on
two occasions. The first time I managed to get to a System Restore Point
without discovering the problem was in fact a damaged MicroSoft AntiSpyware
programme. Now I know what causes this situation, I will only use
CounterSpy and wait until the final version of Microsoft AntiSpyware is
released before evaluating it further.
Derek N

 

[Bill Sanderson]

That sounds like a reasonable course of action to me. You might want to
take another look when Beta2 is released, though.

The two products at this point are so closely related that I'd guess such
interference is quite likely.