Uninstall Sophos endpoint security and control

I am also trying to uninstall Sophos Endpoint from an XP Pro (SR3) computer too.  I have disabled Tamper Protection and been able (through Control Panel - Remove Programs) to remove the SOPHOS AUTO-UPDATING.

I then tried to remove the FIREWALL program but got ERROR 1324. The path My Pictures contains an invalid character.

How do I proceed?

Paul

Hello Paul,

could you show the corresponding log?

Christian

Hello Paul,

not U.K., Austria, Vienna.

SavShellExt.dll is a shell extension (there are several references in the registry), loaded by Explorer when you right-click to get the context menu. You can delete it after the login provided you don't open the context menu. The Sysinternals MoveFile utility lets you schedule the deletion.  

Christian

Well thank you anyway Christian and Guten Tag!

Am trying the Move and rebooting.

SO I wrote the following bat file:
C:\Documents_and_Settings\Paul\My_Documents\Downloads\pendmoves.exe C:\Program_Files\Sophos\Sophos_Anti-Virus\SavShellExt.dll DELETE

and ran it and i got the reply from CMD The system cannot find the path specified.

What did I do wrong please?  Microsoft webpage was not helpful.

Paul

Hello Paul,

did you indeed use underscores? Normally you'd put a path with special characters like blank between double quotes like this: "C:\Documents and Settings\Paul\My Documents\Downloads\pendmoves.exe". Same for the DLL of course.

Christian 

I removed the underscores and reran it and got back C: Documents is not recognized as an internal or external command.

I used the " " and got The system cannot finf the path specified.

Hello Paul,

with blanks in both the command's and the target's path it's "\path to\command.exe" "\path to\the target" parameter. Cannot find the path suggests that either you didn't put quotes around the full path of the DLL or it isn't there.

Christian

So as you can see - here is the file ...

And this is a copy from the batch file Christian

"C:\Documents_and_Settings\Paul\My_Documents\Downloads\pendmoves.exe" "C:\Program_Files\Sophos\Sophos_Anti-Virus\SavShellExt.dll" DELETE

What did I get wrong?

Paul

Hello Paul,

could you show what's in the cmd window (the PendMoves command and its output)? ... I see you did. Well, there's still the underscores (or did you put them in just for this post)

Christian

Sorry - deleted the spaces saved the file and reran it.

Below is the screen

Sorry - deleted the spaces saved the file and reran it.

Below is the screen

Hello Paul,

argh! Dementia, I'm getting old! I've overlooked that you use (and I did use it as well) PendMoves instead of MoveFile (at least this shows that screenshots have their merit).

Christian

Thanks again - success!  2 down one to go!

I will work on that in a few days and post back here as to how it works out.  Thank you Christian for your hard work.  Do you work for Sophos?

Paul

Hello Paul,

Do you work for Sophos?
Apparently in a certain sense. But no - I'm neither an employee nor a partner, reseller, or freelancer.

Christian

Ha-ha!  Well I will run the batch command on the remaining XP machine and see where that takes me I guess.

So running the bat file on the last XP Pro machine I have Christian I got the following log files:

Uninstall_SAV9-10_SophosLog1.txt

=== Verbose logging started: 13/12/2017  12:01:27  Build type: SHIP UNICODE 3.01.4001.5512  Calling process: C:\WINDOWS\system32\msiexec.exe ===
MSI (c) (D0:40) [12:01:27:343]: Resetting cached policy values
MSI (c) (D0:40) [12:01:27:343]: Machine policy value 'Debug' is 0
MSI (c) (D0:40) [12:01:27:343]: ******* RunEngine:
           ******* Product: {A805FB2A-A844-4cba-8088-CA64087D59E1}
           ******* Action:
           ******* CommandLine: **********
MSI (c) (D0:40) [12:01:27:343]: Client-side and UI is none or basic: Running entire install on the server.
MSI (c) (D0:40) [12:01:27:343]: Grabbed execution mutex.
MSI (c) (D0:40) [12:01:27:406]: Cloaking enabled.
MSI (c) (D0:40) [12:01:27:406]: Attempting to enable all disabled priveleges before calling Install on Server
MSI (c) (D0:40) [12:01:27:421]: Incrementing counter to disable shutdown. Counter after increment: 0
MSI (s) (E4:4C) [12:01:27:468]: Grabbed execution mutex.
MSI (s) (E4:40) [12:01:27:468]: Resetting cached policy values
MSI (s) (E4:40) [12:01:27:468]: Machine policy value 'Debug' is 0
MSI (s) (E4:40) [12:01:27:468]: ******* RunEngine:
           ******* Product: {A805FB2A-A844-4cba-8088-CA64087D59E1}
           ******* Action:
           ******* CommandLine: **********
MSI (s) (E4:40) [12:01:27:484]: Machine policy value 'DisableUserInstalls' is 0
MSI (s) (E4:40) [12:01:27:484]: MainEngineThread is returning 1605
MSI (c) (D0:40) [12:01:27:484]: Decrementing counter to disable shutdown. If counter >= 0, shutdown will be denied.  Counter after decrement: -1
MSI (c) (D0:40) [12:01:27:484]: MainEngineThread is returning 1605
=== Verbose logging stopped: 13/12/2017  12:01:27 ===

And for Uninstall_SAV9-10_SophosLog2.txt

=== Verbose logging started: 13/12/2017  12:01:27  Build type: SHIP UNICODE 3.01.4001.5512  Calling process: C:\WINDOWS\system32\msiexec.exe ===
MSI (c) (64:80) [12:01:27:546]: Resetting cached policy values
MSI (c) (64:80) [12:01:27:546]: Machine policy value 'Debug' is 0
MSI (c) (64:80) [12:01:27:546]: ******* RunEngine:
           ******* Product: {09863DA9-7A9B-4430-9561-E04D178D7017}
           ******* Action:
           ******* CommandLine: **********
MSI (c) (64:80) [12:01:27:546]: Client-side and UI is none or basic: Running entire install on the server.
MSI (c) (64:80) [12:01:27:546]: Grabbed execution mutex.
MSI (c) (64:80) [12:01:27:546]: Cloaking enabled.
MSI (c) (64:80) [12:01:27:546]: Attempting to enable all disabled priveleges before calling Install on Server
MSI (c) (64:80) [12:01:27:546]: Incrementing counter to disable shutdown. Counter after increment: 0
MSI (s) (E4:4C) [12:01:27:562]: Grabbed execution mutex.
MSI (s) (E4:60) [12:01:27:562]: Resetting cached policy values
MSI (s) (E4:60) [12:01:27:562]: Machine policy value 'Debug' is 0
MSI (s) (E4:60) [12:01:27:562]: ******* RunEngine:
           ******* Product: {09863DA9-7A9B-4430-9561-E04D178D7017}
           ******* Action:
           ******* CommandLine: **********
MSI (s) (E4:60) [12:01:27:562]: Machine policy value 'DisableUserInstalls' is 0
MSI (s) (E4:60) [12:01:27:562]: MainEngineThread is returning 1605
MSI (c) (64:80) [12:01:27:562]: Decrementing counter to disable shutdown. If counter >= 0, shutdown will be denied.  Counter after decrement: -1
MSI (c) (64:80) [12:01:27:562]: MainEngineThread is returning 1605
=== Verbose logging stopped: 13/12/2017  12:01:27 ===

Nothing seems to have uninstalled on this machine!

The bat file was

MsiExec.exe /X{A805FB2A-A844-4cba-8088-CA64087D59E1} /qn REBOOT=SUPPRESS /L*v %windir%\Temp\Uninstall_SAV9-10_SophosLog1.txt
MsiExec.exe /X{09863DA9-7A9B-4430-9561-E04D178D7017} /qn REBOOT=SUPPRESS /L*v %windir%\Temp\Uninstall_SAV9-10_SophosLog2.txt

as before.

Paul

Hello Paul,

as before 1605 means that the Installer claims the product isn't installed. The product code for the firewall (SCF) hasn't changed for years - was/is it indeed installed? If not, the output would be correct.

The other code is SAV version 10.6.3 - is this indeed the version installed?

Christian

Thanks Christian.  Add/Remove Programs seemed to take care of the remnants.  I'll clean up the Registry for redundant items too.  Then we'll move onto the Windows 10 machine!!

Paul

I ran "C:\Documents and Settings\Sara\My Documents\Downloads\PendMoves\movefile.exe" "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Sophos\Web Intelligence\swi_ifslsp.dll" DELETE in a batch file and it scheduled it for deletion on this last XP Machine Christian and it scheduled it for deletion on reboot ... but swi_ifslsp.dll is still not deleted and is still refusing manual deletion.

Any ideas on this please?

Thanks

Paul

Hello Paul,

question is - why is it left behind? Admittedly Windows XP installations have a long history and thus are susceptible to fouling. Nevertheless it's not very likely that three out of three are causing troubles that can only be resolved by rather violent measures, many uninstall errors are correctable. So don't start to wield the axe at the first failure.

Anyway, please check if the DLL is still registered with winsock - from a cmd window netsh winsock show catalog (can be long so pipe it to a file). If SAV is no longer running (and already perhaps incompletely uninstalled) so that you can disable Web protection you could try to remove the LSP (please note there can be more than one entry) from the catalog using netsh winsock remove provider <catalog ID>.

Christian