Widcomm Uninstalltion wipes out the computer. New Virus or Windows Voulnerability.

Anonymous
2010-07-09T05:33:11+00:00

VERY SERIOUS BUG/VULNERABILITY WIDCOMM BLUETOOTH SOFTWARE

Uninstalling Widcomm bluetooth software from control panel wipes out all data, programs and the boot sector on the computer.

I have tried to report this to microsoft but can't find out how. Please report this to the appropirate department.

I have windows 7 home premium. I tried to update my widcomm bluetooth software by downloading and installing the upgrade. The installation fails giving error 1935. After that the existing widcomm software becomes nonoperational. I tried to uninstall the widcomm bluetooth software from control panel the message "please wait while windows configures Bluetooth software". As it works all files from the hard drive are deleted, the desktop becomes empty, all open programs are deleted, all app data is deleted, the start menu becomes empty and finally it asks to reboot. After reboot the computer gives boot error message and does not boot up.

I had to install windows again to get the computer working. All data was lost. The anti virus was up to date and recent scans were all good. Windows was up to date. It appears that the error is from windows uninstaller some how going haywire when trying to remove widcomm bluetooth software. After restoring my computer I installed widcomm bluetooth software, copied the hard drive and tried to uninstall widcomm again. Results were exactly the same and I got screen shots from the beginning to the end. I have tried it on multiple computers with the same results (cloned the disk before)

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Anonymous
2011-02-05T00:50:32+00:00

Hi widcommbug,

yes, things are getting wild here...I don´t know why.

Maybe I can help you, here is what I did- and it worked:

  1. I´ve deinstalled all versions of widcomm bluetooth software with the windows program deinstallation in the system tools.
  2. I´ve restarted the PC
  3. I´ve cleaned up the registry with a tool (I do not rely on any, I´ve used registry mechanic, which is the same as Norton Utillities 14- but it works more or less)
  4. I´ve downloaded the latest version of widcomm bluethooth software here:

http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/f237/widcomm-bluetooth-driver-6-4-0-670-a-1197332/ 

click on "deposit files", and you´ll get version 6.3.0.7000 of Lenovo widcomm bluetooth software which is the same

as original widcomm bluetooth.

  1. Download it.
  2. Extract it to a folder
  3. Only use the file Broadcom_Bluetooth_6.4.0.670.exe out of the zip archive. Drop the rest.
  4. If you´ll click on this .exe file you´ll only get some weird screen all filled up with ????, so you´ll have to use a different way:
  5. Exctract Broadcom_Bluetooth_6.4.0.670.exe once again to a folder and then click on the file setup.exe

Then, the software will install correctly.

Well, this is weird, agreed. I found it out only a few trials. Remember, this software is leaked from Lenovo, but

it is the latest version I found, it is 100% Widcomm Bluetooth Software.

Here you have prove of what Widcomm is doing:

It does not provide the latest widcomm bluetooth software for free, but only for notebook manufacturers.

Widcomm doesn´t give a single hint on this policy on their homepage- private customers seem to be

unimportant for Widcomm- and still no amendment with the update bug in this software- really poor.

But no way to kid me.

BR

Andy

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-08-07T16:21:57+00:00

    The uninstall procedure took so long because it was actually deleting all the files on the computer. I managed to stop it before it totally destroyed everything, but about 50 hours of code that was worked on during the holiday got destroyed.

    3 system restores did nothing. Was forced to use recovery software that only recovered about half of the lost files (but they were already backed up).

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-08-05T22:51:58+00:00

    Hi,

    Be sure to logon with an ADMIN account and check C:\Users to see if the files are not still there

    as they should be - where C: is the drive where the User Profiles are stored. Hopefully only the

    User Accounts in the Registry were wiped out and not ALL the actual files.

    If the files are still there (and even if not) try a System Restore back to before this happened.

    How to Do a System Restore in Windows 7

    http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/700-system-restore.html

    This of course is a very serious issue and I would get the System Maker andf WidComm Support

    involved.

    Also contact Microsoft Support direct - upper right corner - email or phone

    http://support.microsoft.com/ph/14019/en-us#tab0

    Hope this helps.

    Rob Brown - MS MVP - Windows Desktop Experience : Bicycle - Mark Twain said it right.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-08-05T22:39:38+00:00

    So...... this happened to me too.

    bluetooth wasn't working, so I unsinstalled WIDCOMM Bluetooth from the control panel.

    Now I lost 90% of my files, programs and everything. This is ridiculous. I am interested to know if this is an issue with the WIDCOMM uninstaller or windows. I need to know who is supposed to pay me compensation if I can't recover the files. I did not install this program. It was installed when setting up my laptop. This is unacceptable.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-07-10T07:34:39+00:00

    Thanks for the answer. The issue is not installing the software. In fact after I did a new installation of Win 7 I was able to install widcomm without error 1935. But if I try to uninstall Widcomm Bluetooth Software from Control Panel the uninstall program wipes out the computer. I am not going to update or remove this program ever again as the same thing will happen unless someone figures out what is going on and fix it. I have no idea who is responsible but Microsoft should look into this to make sure its not from the OS and if not inform Broadcom to fix their program. I have emailed them and have not heard anything back. In fact their support email*** Email address is removed for privacy *** doesn't even work. Meanwhile I have found other reports of the same behavior onlinehttp://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Internet-Security-Norton/Widcomm-uninstall-best-virus-ever/td-p/214662 . According to this post he installed the program without errors and when he tried to uninstall it his computer was wiped like mine. I wish I had seen this before I tried uninstall Widcomm from my computer

    I strongly recommend that you test this on a computer and see what happens for your self. Find a compute with a bluetooth and Widcomm software, back up everything and uninstall Widcomm I have tested it on two separte computers (after copying the hard drive) and without even trying to update and had the same results. It is freightening and very srious. Please look into this.

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