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Kudos3 Stats

Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 21-Jul-2023 | 8:15PM · 17 Replies ·

I have used Norton products happily for many years but am quite upset at what happened with the new Driver Updater. I ran the program and half way through it came up with an error, telling me that it was embarrassed and to restart the computer. I did so and got the blue screen of death. Nothing I did after that resolved the issue. My PC has been running fine with no issues, the only thing I did differently was use this wretched program. I contacted Norton and after several chats and phone calls they told me it was nothing to do with Norton, but it is, because it only happened AFTER the error message the Norton Driver Updater program gave. Windows 10 64 bit. 

File Attachment: 
Image icon Norton Driver Updater error 001.png
Labels: Windows 10

Replies

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 24-Jul-2023 | 9:51PM · Permalink

I had the same issue. After Blue Sreen of Death my PC could not load Windows 11. Fortunately I had created a restore point, so I restored Windows 11. Run Norton Driver Updater again, manual one device driver update at a time. Second driver update, realtech driver, back to Blue Screen of Death. Restored PC again, removed Norton Driver Updater from PC. Decided to Windows diagnostics and repair, found Terminal Administration deactivated, after fix, found multiple window problems, such as photos and media player not registered. Run app repair on multiple programs. No more major isuues other than apps not registered to extensions, still running adhoc repairs. Contacted Norton support and requested my money back as Norton Driver Updater current status is a Blue Screen virus. Waiting for resolve of the ticket I opned.

Need to add, this is the 1st time I have had issue with a Norton product.

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 24-Jul-2023 | 10:04PM · Permalink

Thanks for the comment, I'm a long term Nortons fan and have spent a lot of money on their products over the years, which is why I was pretty annoyed at their lack of support. I'm still using their other products but the Driver Updater has serious issues.

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 28-Jul-2023 | 3:57AM · Permalink

I am already in contact with our user Pedroski and try to help him.

For all others with problems with Norton Driver Updater: Please just contact me. 

But please take into account my time zone, I live in Europe. :) I try to answer within a day, except on weekends. Thank you!

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 01-Aug-2023 | 1:48AM · Edited: 01-Aug-2023 | 1:53AM · Permalink

Same title "Driver Updater Trashed my PC", but different details (in response to @uli.engelmann's "Please just contact me. "):

I installed and ran Driver Updater on all three, not so new ThinkPads. On the T550 and L530 it worked fine, but the R500 (Win10 1607*) became unusable, in a different way though:

The Driver Updater obviously found several outdated drivers and the first result only showed a minor glitch. "Broadcom NetLink (TM) Gigabit Ethernet" quit working. Device Manager told me "device unusable" or similar. Since disabling/enabling did not solve, I decided, to restart Windows ... and the disaster started.

After restarting, Windows presented the login screen, but only asked for the Microsoft password, not showing the "sign-in options" (before the update, either PIN or Fingerprint-Reader was enabled). But even worse: the Microsoft password was rejected, even though the displayed mail-address was correct. I verified on another PC that my password was still correct and there was no typo.

After giving up trying to enter the password, I decided to start the ThinkPad in restricted mode: impossible! All methods, I was able to find (F8, 3 times hard power down ...) did not work. Either ending in a black screen for a long time or the login screen refusing my password appeared again.

Even trying to enter BIOS at power-on with F1 or F2 only brought a black screen.

The good news: After hours, I remembered having a Macrium Reflect image backup, which I was able to restore by using two USB 3.0 to SATA adapters ("Icy Box") on the other, still working ThinkPad. So luckily, this brought the R500 back to the state before running Norton Driver Update.  However, now I ask myself, what exactly caused this situation? I doubt, this happened because of the faulty Ethernet driver. Any ideas?

Furthermore, I am afraid now, to ever run again Norton Driver Update again - even on the two ThinkPads where it did not cause any harm (at least yet).

* Always trying to install the latest version of Windows, I was not able to move the R500 beyond 1607 and finally gave up trying after spending many hours on this several years ago.

P.S. Being "newbie" to this forum, I should add I am using Windows and Norton products for 20+ years (first under a company license and since 13 years privately), using IBM PCs since 1982 and working in IT for half a century.

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 01-Aug-2023 | 2:24AM · Permalink

Hi, first of all I apologize for any problems that may have occurred. 

Regarding your problem: If - in addition to the LAN driver - the fingerprint reader driver also stopped working, then it is maybe the case that Windows no longer displays the option for logging in with fingerprint.

However, we can't explain why the PIN option should have disappeared then. This is very strange.

Is it possible that the MS password was either not synchronized with the online account for a long time, or simply the wrong keyboard layout was set during login? If the computer does not display the BIOS, it cannot have anything to do with installed drivers. 

But: It is always problematic to use an outdated version of Windows. Have you ever thought about a complete reinstallation from a current ISO? 

-Uli

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 01-Aug-2023 | 3:02AM · Edited: 01-Aug-2023 | 3:28AM · Permalink

Thanks for the quick response, Uli!

"Is it possible that the MS password was either not synchronized":
In theory yes, but after I restored the working image, all three login-in options did work again, including the very same Microsoft password. Not sure, if the fingerprint reader really quit working. The point was, the log-in panel did not offer the link to switch to another option.

"simply the wrong keyboard layout was set during login?":
Yep, one of the first attempts. I even tried to replace  z with y, although the character was correctly displayed as "z" using the "display password" button ... and caps lock was not set neither.

"Have you ever thought about a complete reinstallation from a current ISO?":
Yes, that was one, possibly the ultimate, of the many attempts to get to a more recent version. Even though, I did not find any hint on that, I assume now the R500 hardware prevents any further updates.

Also: Why was I not able to start Windows in restricted mode and could not even get into BIOS settings?

Kudos1 Stats

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 03-Aug-2023 | 5:48AM · Permalink

It feels like somewhere along the line someone thought they should push the product by saying "See! You have so many drivers out of date" regardless of checking whether the ones they're trying to push to you are actually the right drivers. A pop up saying "Hey, all of your drivers are up to date, lets keep it that way" wouldn't sell as much product. Either that or it was just that badly designed.

Didn't do anything with the updater because I was pretty sure that the 11 drivers they were saying were out of date weren't all out of date, especially the audio ones because I'd checked them fairly recently due to a sound issue (wasn't the drivers in that case but still checked them). Checked about half with the device manager and directly checking with the OEM and not one that Norton said was out of date actually was. Even in the cases where it doesn't brick the computer, it seems like it's just luck that it doesn't mess anything else up.

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 07-Aug-2023 | 6:28AM · Edited: 07-Aug-2023 | 6:28AM · Permalink

Wilfried, what do you mean with "R500 hardware prevents any further updates"? Do you mean your hardware is too old? 

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 07-Aug-2023 | 6:30AM · Permalink

@GCS: Only drivers that Microsoft has in their own database are offered via the device manager. If the device manager does not show any update, it means nothing... 

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 07-Aug-2023 | 7:08AM · Permalink

Uli, either too old (but I did not find any confirmation on that) or just some kind of unusual combination of devices or BIOS settings.

For example instead of the DVD tray it has a 2TB HDD.  But when I tried many things to update, including installing a more current ISO, I did so with and without that 2TB drive. A faulty driver was yet another guess, but the driver update for all outdated drivers made it completely unusable, if I didn't have a working image backup (and the good news is, I know now, restoring the image really does work).

Anyway, I use this laptop only to store my backups.  As I gave up trying to update to a newer Windows 10 version, I decided now, to leave the drivers alone also. For sure, it is too old for Windows 11 anyway.

But I am still wondering, if anybody else ran into the situation not being able to log into Windows anymore, why this can happen. Not sure, if it would be worth the effort to update the drivers one by one and restart each time.

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 07-Aug-2023 | 7:02PM · Permalink

@Uli: That's why I said checking with the OEM as well.

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 07-Aug-2023 | 10:12PM · Permalink

@GCS: Hi, we don't invent the drivers... We only use official sources to obtain drivers. If you want, send me your logfiles via PM and I will tell you where to get the drivers. 

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 07-Aug-2023 | 10:36PM · Permalink

I never said you invented drivers or even that you weren't getting drivers from official sources. I was saying that, from what I saw, your driver updater was misidentifying the appropriate drivers for specific systems and pushing the wrong or incompatible drivers in cases. 

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 08-Aug-2023 | 12:45AM · Permalink

Windows identifies the correct drivers by the hardware ID, the operating system and an internal rank, among other things. We can only offer drivers that fits your system according to Windows.

Again: If you send me your logfiles, I will check the results. 

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 13-Aug-2023 | 3:14AM · Edited: 13-Aug-2023 | 3:38AM · Permalink

@uli.engelmann after successfully restoring my backup image, I installed and ran Driver Updater again, but did not update all drivers at once, instead restarted Windows after each single driver install.  That way I was able to identify the "LPC Controller" as the one, preventing me from logging into Windows.

Driver Updater suggested to replace "LPC Controller 10.0.14393.2155" from Microsoft by 9.1.9.1005 from Intel. Doing so and restarting Windows brought exactly the same problem as described above. I restored the backup image once again and after ignoring that driver, I was able to update all remaining at once - so far without any problem (except for an Ethernet driver which needed to be rolled back).

Trying to find out more about this "LPC Controller". So far, I did not see it in Device Manager.

File Attachment: 
Package icon LPC Controller.zip
Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 13-Aug-2023 | 3:26AM · Permalink

Hi Wilfried, thank you for your analysis and your efforts!!! Can I maybe get the logfiles from the support tool from you?

Kudos0

Re: Norton Driver Updater Trashed my PC

Posted: 13-Aug-2023 | 3:42AM · Edited: 13-Aug-2023 | 3:42AM · Permalink

@uli.engelmann unfortunately not after restoring the image. Remember, after restarting, I cannot even enter Windows.

I could have accessed the drive from my other PC before restoring the image, but didn't think about it.

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