How to uninstall signatures

[Daze]

After uninstalling Windows Defender, I am left with a Signature update
in my Add/Remove Programs that it says cannot be uninstalled. Is this in
fact true?

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

This is something I haven't seen. Was the uninstall apparently routine?

I don't have a fix to offer that I know is safe and effective.

 

[Pat Willener]

Have you tried the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility? You can get it
from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301/

 

[Daze]

Have you tried the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility? You can get it
from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301/

Hey, the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility seems to have done the trick!
First time I've had occasion to use it. Thanks for the suggestion, Pat!

 

[Claudio Valderrama C.]

Have you tried the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility? You can get it
from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301/

Strangely, in the listing of products this articles applies to, WD is not
mentioned.


C.

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

Please DON'T try this one, at the moment at least.

I'm not sure it is even still available.

It breaks Office updates, and there's presently an unpatch vulnerability in
Word that will get patched on the next security update cycle, and is being
exploited (although not widely)

So--we don't need more broken Office installs just at the moment.

(yeah--I know--I've recommended it very frequently myself!)

--

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

It applys to anything that uses an MSI installer.

However--read my other reply in this thread. This tool is dangerous at the
moment--and maybe forever. If you use Microsoft Office, you may need to do
a repair install to regain update capability.

--

 

[Steve Dodson [MSFT]]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/915105 is how you use msiexec to uninstall
the signature set.

--
-steve

Steve Dodson [MSFT]
Windows Defender Beta Lead
MCSE, CISSP
http://blogs.technet.com/stevedod
--

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[Tom Emmelot]

Hi Bill,

you may recommend this tool for Signatures uninstaller:
Download:
http://www.freeware-guide.com/dir/files/easy_uninstaller.zip
Install it.
It uses the msiexec command, to get rid of it!

Regards >*< TOM >*<



Bill Sanderson MVP schreef:

 

[Daze]

Please DON'T try this one, at the moment at least.

I'm not sure it is even still available.

It breaks Office updates, and there's presently an unpatch vulnerability in
Word that will get patched on the next security update cycle, and is being
exploited (although not widely)

So--we don't need more broken Office installs just at the moment.

(yeah--I know--I've recommended it very frequently myself!)

Hmm. Your warning comes too late. But I used the Cleanup Utility only
for the WD signature, nothing else. And it seems to have worked fine.
The signature update is no longer listed in Add/Remove Programs. I find
nothing broken. MS Word and Excel are both still functioning properly. I
seem to be perfectly OK.

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

Try going to OfficeUpdate and see what happens. I believe it will be
broken, and the same will be true of MicrosoftUpdate with regards to Office
patches, anyway.

I believe the fix is either a repair of Office, or a reinstall--haven't
really tested thoroughly--a reinstall definitely seems to work.

You will want this to be working by the second Tuesday of June, and perhaps
sooner.

--

 

[Daze]

Try going to OfficeUpdate and see what happens. I believe it will be
broken, and the same will be true of MicrosoftUpdate with regards to Office
patches, anyway.

I believe the fix is either a repair of Office, or a reinstall--haven't
really tested thoroughly--a reinstall definitely seems to work.

You will want this to be working by the second Tuesday of June, and perhaps
sooner.

Although MicrosoftUpdate *appears* to be working fine, and I believe
myself to be fully patched (including Office), it looks like you're
right with respect to OfficeUpdate, which returns the message "Office
Update is unable to check for updates." Sheet. I'll try a Repair first,
then a Reinstall, if that doesn't seem to have cleared up the problem .
.. . Thanks for the heads-up, Dennis.

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

Sorry about the problem--that app has been around and been used widely, but
it is now biting folks, I'm afraid.

 

[Daze]

Sorry about the problem--that app has been around and been used widely, but
it is now biting folks, I'm afraid.

First I've heard of it. It was even recently recommended as a fix for
something in Langa's newsletter, as I recall. It has definitely screwed
up my MS Office 2K Pro in that I can't repair it and I can't uninstall
it. Although it's otherwise working fine, I don't want to leave it like
this, and it's looking like my only option will be reinstalling my whole
system with a month-old image. Darn! I've made a lot of changes during
the past month, too . . .

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

You should be able to fix this without a reinstall of the OS--I've done it
on my home system. I think I probably used the cleanup tool to remove
Office, and then reinstalled it from scratch.

--

 

[Tom Emmelot]

Hi Daze,

did this several times, use the install cleanup utility also for clean up
your Office products than after that put in your Office cd and do a new
install all the things are still there address book mail and all the
other stuff remain and update should be working fine again.

Regards >*< TOM >*<

Daze schreef:

 

[Daze]

You should be able to fix this without a reinstall of the OS--I've done it
on my home system. I think I probably used the cleanup tool to remove
Office, and then reinstalled it from scratch.

Good news. I checked my System Restore and discovered that restore
points had been made yesterday evening for both the installation and the
uninstallation of the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility. Noticing that I
also had a routine system checkpoint that had been made seven hours
earlier, though, I chose it for doing a system restore. After the
restore, AFAICT, all changes had been rolled back to the way things were
yesterday morning. And when I tried OfficeUpdate, it worked! It even had
a PowerPoint update for me, which I downloaded and installed. So it
appears that I'm, relatively easily, back in business via System
Restore.

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

Great--glad to hear it.

--

Good news. I checked my System Restore and discovered that restore points
had been made yesterday evening for both the installation and the
uninstallation of the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility. Noticing that I
also had a routine system checkpoint that had been made seven hours
earlier, though, I chose it for doing a system restore. After the restore,
AFAICT, all changes had been rolled back to the way things were yesterday
morning. And when I tried OfficeUpdate, it worked! It even had a
PowerPoint update for me, which I downloaded and installed. So it appears
that I'm, relatively easily, back in business via System Restore.

 

[Daze]

Great--glad to hear it.

Yeah. Whew!! But the restore means that I also have that pesky signature
update in my Add/Remove Programs again, and I just discovered that the
Run command given at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/915105 won't remove
it. The ID for this pesky signature update (from May 1) is
{9FEA9D65-174C-485A-8C53-291041EAF7C5}. And as I've noted, I had
previously uninstalled Windows Defender. Perhaps it needs to be
*in*stalled in order to uninstall a signature update . . . ?

 

[Daze]

Hi Daze,

did this several times, use the install cleanup utility also for clean up
your Office products than after that put in your Office cd and do a new
install all the things are still there address book mail and all the
other stuff remain and update should be working fine again.

Regards >*< TOM >*<

Daze schreef:

Already got it taken care of via System Restore, Tom. But thanks, anyway.