This is probably the result of the latest McAfee update which is causing all sorts of difficulties. I have just collected a machine and the only solution to the total foul-up created by this is a reinstall of the OS. Punter is not happy - local McAfee support charges £1 a minute! (same as me but at least you get a result and your data saved!)

When you get the message about needing to be sys admin just iignore, On mine the changes ar made anyway.
Enable all your services and disable all your startup programs and see if that helps.
If it does gradually restore it to the options you want at start-up.

Normally the access denied error is made in error and ignore it and save the changes (they are saved anyway) so you should be able to do a system restore.

Disabling anti-virus might be a good idea as they can cause probelms.

I have two more machines into the workshops this week with the same symptom - and both as a result of a McAfee update that went wrong. And in each case the client had asked McAfee for help and the fix made the situation so much worse that the best option for a fix was a reinstall of the OS in each case,

Access denied error MSCONFIG

This can be easily solved by Typing msconfig in command prompt than choose Normal startup then click on startup to choose whatever you need to start when Windows starts. Then go back and click Selective startup. Problem solved.

I have solved it!!


well to a certain extent!!


The problem is the

True Vector Internet monitor

Which is under the services tab in msconfig.

If you leave it disabled you get the access denied error, so you just enable it (tick box)
and hey presto the problem goes away.

I messed about with my services a bit so I may have a few other running I do not want
but that is a minor problem.


The process concerned is

C:\WINDOWS\system32\ZoneLabs\vsmon.exe -service


However that process does not exist on my my machine.

I am just wondering how to get rid of the all traces of ZA (chuck hard drive in bin??)

The reason why this solves it it because it enables all services.

OK I used this.
http://www.technibble.com/zone-alarm...l-of-the-week/
for this download
http://download.zonealarm.com/bin/fr...cpes_clean.exe

It removes all traces of ZA so the problem should not come back again.

Just to add a little here. I have experienced this issue on a number of occasions with the problematic software being different each time. It was once Virus Total, then the Hp printer driver as discussed in previous post to this topic. It is now Avast anti-virus. Although I am not sure, however, that my symptoms are the exact. To be more specific, although I do receive the access denied error I am able to ultimately make the changes. I guess this is something I will have to deal with until Avast decides to make a patch for the issue. I'm certainly not going to surf unprotected and after years of having Avast, MABM and SAS in combination without ever even a single infection, I am just not comfortable or willing to use anything else. Point here being, if the fixes listed do not work for you then get ready to do alot of uninstalling and reinstalling and restarts. I know of no way to determine which software is causing the problem other than the process of elimination. It's on to Avast forums now to begin the tug-of-war there for a patch.

Well I solved it by removing ZA with the tool, uninstalling it does not seem to work correctly. However as you indicate, the problem is somewhat cosmetic as the error message does not reflect reality.
I can only speak for my experience of the problem, removing ZA worked for me.
It seems ZA tried to protect itself from being turned off, (and failed) but still got out the cosmetic error message.

Personally I seem to have had more problems from the the software which is protecting me that the viruses it is supposed to protect me from - lol.
Not sure what that means, it seems the problem 'falls through the cracks' between microsoft and A/V and firewall developers.

However I am pretty happy with my AVG and Comodo firewall at the moment.
They wee to work, (how would I know if they didn't anyway?!!).
So ignorance is at least bliss!

an access denied error msconfig

I have the same problem, my culprit seems to be Norton Internet Security. I can use Norton Internet Security 2009 and the problem is gone, but if I use 2010, or 2011 the problem is there, so I either deal with it,(the changes in msconfig do take), it's just annoying, or go back to Norton 2009...untill a solution is found.