Configuration and Preferences not saving

[Jase]

Hi, I have SuperAntiSpyware Free Edition installed on my home pc's. On one of the PC's, the Configuration and Preferences don't seem to save. After making changes to the settings and closing the program down, when I restart all the settings have returned to the default. The program itself works fine. It updates and scans and runs according to the changed settings. But once the program is restarted the settings have been reset to default. The settings seem to save fine on my other other computer. They're both running on Windows XP. Any help would be great. Thanks!

[Jase]

Thanks for the reply.

It would appear that none of the settings are being saved. Every time I start the program it asks me what language to use and whether I want to protect the home page. The settings I go to specifically change in the preferences menu are:

• uncheck "Show SuperAntiSpyware icon in system tray"
  uncheck "Ignore files larger than 4MB"
  uncheck "Ignore non-executable files"
  uncheck "Scan only known file types"
  check "Close browsers before scanning"
  uncheck "Scan for tracking cookies"
  check "Terminate memory threats before quarantining"
  uncheck "Display scan option in Explorer context menu"
  uncheck "Display notification when home page changed"
  check "Check for program updates when the application starts"
  uncheck "Notify me if I have not checked for definition updates"
  

I've updated SuperAntiSpyware to the latest version. However, one thing I forgot to mention is that the "Check for Updates Now..." function doesn't seem to work either so I had to go to the webpage and download and install the latest version manually. On my other machine, when I click the "Check for Updates Now..." button it pops up a prompt over the system tray. That never appears on the machine where the program seems to be broken. I suspected malware interference, but I ran several different scans from various programs with the latest malware definitions and nothing showed up. Including the scans from SuperAntiSpyware. The malware definition updating seems to work fine. And like I mentioned in the previous post, the software seems to work fine on my laptop running XP. It's just this desktop where the program is acting funky. Any help would be great. Thanks very much!

[Jase]

I keep my system running pretty clean. The only program I typically have running in memory is just the ZoneAlarm free firewall. The anti-malware scanners I have installed, I don't have them running in memory doing real time scanning. I just do scans every once in a while.

So if it seems like the registry keys aren't being saved, where specifically in the windows registry are they saved and at what point are they supposed to get saved? I could check the registry and see whether they're even being changed or not or see at what point they revert back to defaults. Thanks!

[Jase]

It took me a while to get back to this since I don't often use the PC that's having the problems with SuperAntiSpyware. It's like a backup computer. I created a support ticket. The customer support rep told me it was my firewall and just closed the ticket without even checking to see if it fixed the problem. The firewall doesn't even block registry changes. It blocks inbound and outbound network traffic.

I did have a thought though about what may possibly be causing the problem. The machine where the SuperAntiSpyware won't save the registry changes is actually a dual boot machine. I have Win98 on c: and WinXP on d:. SuperAntiSpyware is installed on WinXP on d: drive. Is it possible there's a bug related to the dual boot setup and the running operating system isn't on the c: drive? Thanks.

[batkerson]

It still does not save settings when closing right after changing settings.

[gixmi]

The anti-malware scanners I have installed, I don't have them running in memory doing real time scanning. ZoneAlaram is working well.

[Seth]

Having SAS installed on the D drive may be a good clue. Also, do you have Spybot Search and Destroy installed?

Other than that, it sounds like a corruption in SAS, or as mentioned, some other security product (like Spybot) is preventing the registry changes.

Another option is to uninstall and reinstall SAS. Use this tool:

https://www.superantispyware.com/support ... tml?faq=47

[Jase]

Thanks for all the tips, but nothing is working so far.

Immediately closing the application doesn't work. I reopen it back up and everything is set back to default.

I don't have Spybot Search and Destroy installed. I tried using that uninstaller Seth linked to, and then reinstalling a fresh copy of the latest version, but it still won't save settings even with the new version.

Just to satisfy the tech support guy, I completely uninstalled ZoneAlarm and tried saving settings in SUPERAntiSpyware again and I still got the same behavior. So it's definitely not ZoneAlarm.

Does anyone know where the registry keys or configuration file is to save the program's settings? At least maybe I can just manually go in and set them if something is blocking them or they're not being saved correctly.

batkerson, do you happen to be running on a dual boot machine as well or have the OS that SAS is installed on different than C:? Just thought I'd see if there were any similarities in our setup.

[Seth]

Hi Jase.

For a test to see if the install on the D drive is a problem, go to the following and install any 3.9 version on the C drive and see if the settings are saved (on the C drive install)

http://www.filehippo.com/download_superantispyware/

[batkerson]

I regularly install: SAS, spybot, lavasoft, malware bytes and windows defender on all machines I work on. I turn off autoprotect on all of them. ALL windows updates are done, scanned with bitdefender and trendmicro (or not, depending on how finicky they are being) and defraged. This one computer will not save the SAS settings. I am going to be working on it today (will try the uninstall and reinstall shortly) and report back.

Thanks for the help!

[batkerson]

OK, I have just gone through the uninstall/reinstall and same results. Does not store the settings.

[Seth]

Spybot uses a feature called "Tea Timer" that can prevent certain registry changes. I've seen systems in which Spybot was disabled, but running processes still showed Tea Timer running.

Try my previous suggestion with V3.9 on the C drive. If that doesn't help, it might be a good idea to post your running processes.