Problems with F-Secure Antivirus

Question

My mum's computer came loaded with F-Secure Antivirus for Workstations. This has been fine until a recent update.

As well as changing the icon from red to blue, there is now a process fssm32.exe which grinds the machine to a halt taking up large amounts of CPU and memory.

According to a google search a lot of people have had this problem and some people's solution was to disable the firewall component. But there is no firewall component in this version.

My next idea was to uninstall and replace it with AVG. There is no option in add/remove programs or the startmenu to uninstall it. In running the fsuninst.exe it unhelpfully told me to use add/remove programs.

I used the unload option, disabled the services and tried to run

"C:\Program Files\F-Secure\fsuninst.exe" /UninstRegKey:"F-Secure Antivirus Uninstall"

using the regkey I found in an inf file in that folder. This gives an "uninstall failed" error with no further information.

Any ideas how I can fix the problem with fssm32.exe or uninstall this half decently?

Answer 1

Let's murder F-Prot. ;)

Reboot in safe mode (press F8 at boot screen).

Once logged into safe mode, search for fssm32.exe (don't forget system and hidden files)!

rename all instances of fssm32.exe found - fssm32.exe.bak is a good choice.

Reboot - if F-Prot still works, great, check if fssm32.exe is still running. If F-Prot is wonky, reboot in safe mode again, and this time, delete the whole entire F-Prot folder - Windows should be resilient enough to withstand that. Run the usual cleanup steps (reg + services) after deleting.

Give it a shot.

Answer 2

See this : How To Uninstall F-Secure Antivirus or Internet Security 2007.