Dell support centre dsc.exe messing up dell inspiron 1300

[dmdougie]

I really hope someone can help me with this one, cause I have just about exhausted every solution I can think of.

I was given a friends laptop to fix. Basically, McAfee was corrupt and stopped the user getting online. I uninstalled it and reinstalled it - worked fine for an hour or so.

The lead up to the problem
I was then removing somethings from startup and services tab in msconfig to improve startup. I removed all McAfee services because I know that these can sometimes stop you from being able to alter startup items. In startup tab I just removed non essentials like msn.

I then changed the page file becuase it was set to something like 3024-4096 when there is only 1GB of RAM in the system. I reduced it to what I thought it should be.

On restart we had problems.

'C:\program files\dell support centre\gs_agent\dsc.exe - could not launch program, error code 2147023174'

'Wirless configuration - Notification dll has not been registered, program will not work correctly'

Windows has also reverted to classic view.

What I've tried doing
I changed startup and services back to default, I changed the page file back to what it was before. Still nothing. I tried last know good config, system restore - with system restore get the message, 'system restore will not save your computer. restart and try again'

Thinking I may have to reformat the drive, I tried to extract the data. Not gonna happen. Cant write to a disc, cant copy to a USB pen or external drive, cant get online to upload to humyo or offload on the network, cant connect via ethernet to my PC.

I've tried booting in safe mode to copy things to usb drive or uninstall dell support centre - no luck. I have tried safe mode with networking - no luck. I have run diagnostic on hard drive - it's not a hardware problem. I've tried removing dsc from startup so I can try to remove on next bootup - no luck.

Every time I try to uninstall software I get the message, ' Windows installer service could not be accessed. This can occur if in safe mode or not installed correctly.'

Bottom Line
What it boils down to is this. Something is stopping me from removing any program from the machine, or copying data from the machine through any means. Is there anyway I can save the data?

I really need help with this one, thanks to anyone who can shed some light on it

Doug

[GroundZero3]

Moved to the technical support thread

[osprey4]

Hi, Doug:

See this MS article to fix the Windows installer issue.

Then you should be able to uninstall Dell Support Center. I suggest you remove it permanently, and simply check Dell downloads now and again for updates.