We use Ad-Aware Free on both of our laptops. On January 28th, both my husband and I downloaded the Anniversary Edition from the mirror site CNET. I immediately ran a scan on my laptop to test the field and all worked well. However, on January 29th, in the later afternoon, I opened Ad-Aware, ran an update, and started a scan. The scan completed, but I was not able to proceed to deleting the 3 MRU objects it had found. The program appeared to have frozen up and instead I noticed that icons began disappearing from my desktop, ....right in front of my eyes everything vanished. I was left with an empty laptop: no icons, no programs, no Start menu items. Even my paid AVG had been wiped out, with the firewall disabled and several components missing. All folders were empty. I did a system restore out of desperation and panic, but my programs, files, and folders were still gone. I knew that I was not able to fix this problem by myself and my husband certainly was at the end of his computer wits as well. He immediately uninstalled Ad-Aware from his own laptop. Good thing he never updated or ran a scan with the new edition!
I gave my laptop to a professional in order to try to rescue some of the things that I had not backed up yet, but he, too, had no idea of what on earth had happened. Upon his advice, my hard drive was wiped clean, the operation system installed anew...and I am now starting from scratch. Some things I had backed up, but others not yet, as we were waiting for the weekend to buy a bigger external hard drive. The biggest upset to me is the loss of lots of photos and my itunes music library.
It is only now after reading some of the posts on this forum that I realize that the same thing happened to other people. For me, the damage is done...and we have certainly lost all trust in Lavasoft and will not use Ad-Aware again.
Full Version: Use of Ad-Aware AE wiped out my laptop
Lavasoft Support Forums > Archived Topics > Archives: Resolved/Inactive Topics > AAW Anniversary Edition - Resolved/Inactive
QUOTE(Daphne 2008 @ Feb 4 2009, 06:30 PM) 
I gave my laptop to a professional in order to try to rescue some of the things that I had not backed up yet, but he, too, had no idea of what on earth had happened. Upon his advice, my hard drive was wiped clean, the operation system installed anew...and I am now starting from scratch.
I am very sorry for your loss; only wish you'd come here first as I did post on my recovery that day, and Mods suggested recovery programs to salvage lost documents.
QUOTE
Some things I had backed up, but others not yet, as we were waiting for the weekend to buy a bigger external hard drive. The biggest upset to me is the loss of lots of photos and my itunes music library.
I understand.
QUOTE(DDon @ Feb 4 2009, 05:02 PM)
I am very sorry for your loss; only wish you'd come here first as I did post on my recovery that day, and Mods suggested recovery programs to salvage lost documents.
I understand.
I understand.
Thanks for your compassion, DDon. Yes, I wished I had come to this forum right away. But, getting online to search for solutions there was the last thing on my mind in that situation, esp. without any anti-virus protection. My first thought was that the download must have been some kind of hoax and that I had to have a really bad trojan. I had never experienced anything like that before. It was traumatizing.
I only came across this Lavasoft forum while searching for an alternative to Ad-Aware, now that I have my laptop back up and running. I figured I should post and contribute because there must be lots of people out there like myself who just "dealt" with the problem the best they could. The more people come forward with "their story", the better the chances that something like this won't happen again. I don't wish that on anyone.
By the way, love your sense of humor and your emoticon with the hammer.
QUOTE(Daphne 2008 @ Feb 4 2009, 08:03 PM)
By the way, love your sense of humor and your emoticon with the hammer.
Hehe TY. I try to help lighten things up at times, in my own dry way.
A lot to be learned here. Stick around...
We're very sorry to hear you were one of the ones affected by the update. Not everyone was affected and it was only under rare circumstances that caused the effect you had, however, we can understand even 1 is too many. The problem was corrected within 24 hours and we do have sticky now posted here for anyone who had this problem back on the the 29th
Bug with Anniversary Edition update
http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?showtopic=23410
I've alerted the Support Team of your post here so you should be hearing from them directly. Thanks for posting this.
For anyone with this same problem who has not wiped the hard drive and needs to recover data files, this free tool has worked well:
http://www.recuva.com/
Bug with Anniversary Edition update
http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?showtopic=23410
I've alerted the Support Team of your post here so you should be hearing from them directly. Thanks for posting this.
For anyone with this same problem who has not wiped the hard drive and needs to recover data files, this free tool has worked well:
http://www.recuva.com/
QUOTE(LS CalamityJane @ Feb 5 2009, 05:01 AM)
We're very sorry to hear you were one of the ones affected by the update. Not everyone was affected and it was only under rare circumstances that caused the effect you had, however, we can understand even 1 is too many. The problem was corrected within 24 hours and we do have sticky now posted here for anyone who had this problem back on the the 29th
Bug with Anniversary Edition update
http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?showtopic=23410
I've alerted the Support Team of your post here so you should be hearing from them directly. Thanks for posting this.
For anyone with this same problem who has not wiped the hard drive and needs to recover data files, this free tool has worked well:
http://www.recuva.com/
Bug with Anniversary Edition update
http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?showtopic=23410
I've alerted the Support Team of your post here so you should be hearing from them directly. Thanks for posting this.
For anyone with this same problem who has not wiped the hard drive and needs to recover data files, this free tool has worked well:
http://www.recuva.com/
Dear LS Calamity Jane,
thanks for your reply. I've also heard from a member of the Support Team in the meantime.
I have a couple of remarks regarding the way Lavasoft downplays this event and makes it sound as if very few people were affected. It's all relative, and if you don't know for sure how many were affected by polling each and every person who uses any version of Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition, you can't be making definitive statements like this.
You will never know how many people exactly were affected by it because if they are like myself, as an Ad-Aware Free user you don't automatically assume that there is any sort of support available to you. If that had happened with my paid AVG Internet Security programme, I certainly would have tried to get in touch with them immediately. The average person, the lay user, will not go to a forum first thing. They'll try to deal with it themselves. Starting with the 30th of January, I was without a laptop because I had to take it in. My husband's was taken in as well as a precautionary measure. This event was a biggy....even our computer technician was at a loss!
As someone who is not all that computer savvy you are totally dumb founded when something like that happens to you; you panic; you remember "system restore" and if that fails, all you want is to hand your computer over to someone who can fix or salvage whatever can be salvaged. You don't know what caused your computer's behavior. I did not automatically think "it's Ad-Aware's fault"...I knew it was somehow connected to the anniversary edition update, but really thought that I had downloaded a fake version with a bad trojan in it.
I have never posted on any computer-related forum before. I read them whenever I am trying to find information, but I have never actually signed up to post. Most users are like myself. Like I said in my second post here, I only stumbled across this forum while researching alternatives to Ad-Aware on the internet.
I stand by my opinion that this should not have happened...not even to a single computer/user. If you can't trust your anti spyware or anti virus provider, then whom can you trust? Lavasoft had my full trust and I would have never thought that it would be an "update bug" from the very provider who is supposed to protect you from exactly what happened that would bring down my laptop to its knees. I've had the worst time since January 29th and all I can think of is how to avoid anything like this from happening again. I have a really hard time putting my trust in Lavasoft again. Everybody we know whom we told about this has uninstalled their Ad-Aware in the meantime because nobody wants to take a risk like that by updating. The money spent on repair is another issue. After all, we're not talking about a glitch or hick-up here, but about the worst case scenario. Now that it is confirmed that Ad-Aware Anniverary Edition update was the cause, I am even more upset than before. Your claim that this issue did not show in Beta Testing proves only one thing: that your beta testing was incomplete or inadequate. Your "update bug" (sounds so harmless) did a better job than most trojans out there could hope to do.
"Building on 10 years of advanced malware detection, Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition provides comprehensive malware protection without loading down your system’s resources, bringing you the core competence you need to stay safe online. Visit our Ad-Aware Free, Plus and Pro product pages to see the new and improved features of each new version."
---> It is apparently so good that a single update can quickly determine that your whole computer is malware; it can free your system's resources by removing bulk of any sort, including your legitimate programs and saved folders/files; it helps you stay safe online by making sure you can't get online anymore. This "new and improved version" proved to have the capacity to competely liberate you from the stesses of owning a computer - because you might not have one left to begin with.
QUOTE(Daphne 2008 @ Feb 5 2009, 06:44 AM)
Dear LS Calamity Jane,
thanks for your reply. I've also heard from a member of the Support Team in the meantime.
I have a couple of remarks regarding the way Lavasoft downplays this event and makes it sound as if very few people were affected. It's all relative, and if you don't know for sure how many were affected by polling each and every person who uses any version of Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition, you can't be making definitive statements like this.
You will never know how many people exactly were affected by it because if they are like myself, as an Ad-Aware Free user you don't automatically assume that there is any sort of support available to you. If that had happened with my paid AVG Internet Security programme, I certainly would have tried to get in touch with them immediately. The average person, the lay user, will not go to a forum first thing. They'll try to deal with it themselves. Starting with the 30th of January, I was without a laptop because I had to take it in. My husband's was taken in as well as a precautionary measure. This event was a biggy....even our computer technician was at a loss!
As someone who is not all that computer savvy you are totally dumb founded when something like that happens to you; you panic; you remember "system restore" and if that fails, all you want is to hand your computer over to someone who can fix or salvage whatever can be salvaged. You don't know what caused your computer's behavior. I did not automatically think "it's Ad-Aware's fault"...I knew it was somehow connected to the anniversary edition update, but really thought that I had downloaded a fake version with a bad trojan in it.
I have never posted on any computer-related forum before. I read them whenever I am trying to find information, but I have never actually signed up to post. Most users are like myself. Like I said in my second post here, I only stumbled across this forum while researching alternatives to Ad-Aware on the internet.
I stand by my opinion that this should not have happened...not even to a single computer/user. If you can't trust your anti spyware or anti virus provider, then whom can you trust? Lavasoft had my full trust and I would have never thought that it would be an "update bug" from the very provider who is supposed to protect you from exactly what happened that would bring down my laptop to its knees. I've had the worst time since January 29th and all I can think of is how to avoid anything like this from happening again. I have a really hard time putting my trust in Lavasoft again. Everybody we know whom we told about this has uninstalled their Ad-Aware in the meantime because nobody wants to take a risk like that by updating. The money spent on repair is another issue. After all, we're not talking about a glitch or hick-up here, but about the worst case scenario. Now that it is confirmed that Ad-Aware Anniverary Edition update was the cause, I am even more upset than before. Your claim that this issue did not show in Beta Testing proves only one thing: that your beta testing was incomplete or inadequate. Your "update bug" (sounds so harmless) did a better job than most trojans out there could hope to do.
"Building on 10 years of advanced malware detection, Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition provides comprehensive malware protection without loading down your system’s resources, bringing you the core competence you need to stay safe online. Visit our Ad-Aware Free, Plus and Pro product pages to see the new and improved features of each new version."
---> It is apparently so good that a single update can quickly determine that your whole computer is malware; it can free your system's resources by removing bulk of any sort, including your legitimate programs and saved folders/files; it helps you stay safe online by making sure you can't get online anymore. This "new and improved version" proved to have the capacity to competely liberate you from the stesses of owning a computer - because you might not have one left to begin with.
thanks for your reply. I've also heard from a member of the Support Team in the meantime.
I have a couple of remarks regarding the way Lavasoft downplays this event and makes it sound as if very few people were affected. It's all relative, and if you don't know for sure how many were affected by polling each and every person who uses any version of Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition, you can't be making definitive statements like this.
You will never know how many people exactly were affected by it because if they are like myself, as an Ad-Aware Free user you don't automatically assume that there is any sort of support available to you. If that had happened with my paid AVG Internet Security programme, I certainly would have tried to get in touch with them immediately. The average person, the lay user, will not go to a forum first thing. They'll try to deal with it themselves. Starting with the 30th of January, I was without a laptop because I had to take it in. My husband's was taken in as well as a precautionary measure. This event was a biggy....even our computer technician was at a loss!
As someone who is not all that computer savvy you are totally dumb founded when something like that happens to you; you panic; you remember "system restore" and if that fails, all you want is to hand your computer over to someone who can fix or salvage whatever can be salvaged. You don't know what caused your computer's behavior. I did not automatically think "it's Ad-Aware's fault"...I knew it was somehow connected to the anniversary edition update, but really thought that I had downloaded a fake version with a bad trojan in it.
I have never posted on any computer-related forum before. I read them whenever I am trying to find information, but I have never actually signed up to post. Most users are like myself. Like I said in my second post here, I only stumbled across this forum while researching alternatives to Ad-Aware on the internet.
I stand by my opinion that this should not have happened...not even to a single computer/user. If you can't trust your anti spyware or anti virus provider, then whom can you trust? Lavasoft had my full trust and I would have never thought that it would be an "update bug" from the very provider who is supposed to protect you from exactly what happened that would bring down my laptop to its knees. I've had the worst time since January 29th and all I can think of is how to avoid anything like this from happening again. I have a really hard time putting my trust in Lavasoft again. Everybody we know whom we told about this has uninstalled their Ad-Aware in the meantime because nobody wants to take a risk like that by updating. The money spent on repair is another issue. After all, we're not talking about a glitch or hick-up here, but about the worst case scenario. Now that it is confirmed that Ad-Aware Anniverary Edition update was the cause, I am even more upset than before. Your claim that this issue did not show in Beta Testing proves only one thing: that your beta testing was incomplete or inadequate. Your "update bug" (sounds so harmless) did a better job than most trojans out there could hope to do.
"Building on 10 years of advanced malware detection, Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition provides comprehensive malware protection without loading down your system’s resources, bringing you the core competence you need to stay safe online. Visit our Ad-Aware Free, Plus and Pro product pages to see the new and improved features of each new version."
---> It is apparently so good that a single update can quickly determine that your whole computer is malware; it can free your system's resources by removing bulk of any sort, including your legitimate programs and saved folders/files; it helps you stay safe online by making sure you can't get online anymore. This "new and improved version" proved to have the capacity to competely liberate you from the stesses of owning a computer - because you might not have one left to begin with.
Everyone out there, please, take notice of the last LS message to grneys803.They've closed her topic/thread. This is what they posted on her post:
Hello, grneys803
Please check your Messages (*New Messages* link at the top of the forum) as Customer Support informs me they have contacted you there.
To others:
This update bug was fixed on the 29th so if you have since updated your product you will not experience this problem.
If there are any users of the Free version, that do suspect you have been affected that need assistance, As requested in this post:
http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?s...ost&p=95659
Please use the Private Message system to send a PM to:
LS Jeffery
http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?showuser=57892
And he will have the Support Team get in touch with you for assistance.
For any Pro/plus user they can contact us directly through the support center.
https://secure.lavasoft.com/support/supportcenter/
Note: Users can recover the lost data from the instructions below.
To recover any lost data from your system please first use the system restore utility.
If any of the files are still not fully recovered, Please download and install this free software application from the link below.
Run this application to fully restore any lost data.
http://www.recuva.com/download
This topic is now closed. If anyone else needs additional assistance, please follow the directions above or post a new topic of your own if needed so we don't hijack this original topic starter's thread.
[color="#FF0000"][/color]The purpose is to keep those AE crashes out of the forum, to sweep it under the rug! Why not discuss these issues in the open, public forum??????
And in case you wonder what it means to be contacted by the Support Team (which normally is limited to the paid versions only). They try to shut you up and appease you by offering a free suscription to the paid PRO version of AE for six months. Anybody whose computer got wiped out at the hands of Ad-Aware (they call it an "update BUG") will agree with me that this is utterly lame! WHO ON EARTH WOULD INSTALL THIS PROGRAM AFTER A WIPE OUT CAUSED BY IT? Ad-Aware AE should come with a warning: this program or its updates can potentially harm your computer!
What's the next bug hiding in AE?
__________________________________
Victim of the Ad-Aware AE "update bug"
*eyes lump under the rug suspicously*
*grabs up fly swatter in case anymore "bugs" crawl out*
I laughed when I saw the pop up for the Valentine offer from Lavasoft when I used my 2008 version. Do you really think I would want to inflict who knows what else on my sweetheart?
*grabs up fly swatter in case anymore "bugs" crawl out*
I laughed when I saw the pop up for the Valentine offer from Lavasoft when I used my 2008 version. Do you really think I would want to inflict who knows what else on my sweetheart?
No one here is downplaying the severity of the problem and your concerns are well taken as to how seriously we are taking trying to help anyone get this fixed if they were affected Free or Paid users. This is why I said
Paid users have the access to the Support Center which is recommended for them. We are trying very hard to accomodate free users here with our Support team which they generally do not have access to.
Closing resolved threads is standard operating procedures here due to other posters jumping in with unrelated issues and or ill-advised even if well intended advice on "what worked for them". This is resolved once that customer is turned over to the customer service team. If the OP's original problems somehow remain unresolved or he has additional related problems, he is welcome to open a new topic. There is nothing hidden here. All information about this problem is posted openly here in the forum and anyone with a new problem is encouraged to post here. The notice about the bug update was put into a Pinned topic for extra visibility to encourange anyone who needed help to get it.
There have been roughly 15 or so cases out of the only 150,000 or so who downloaded the problem update. That equates to about .01% of those who even got the update during that time period. This means most users were NOT affected we will continue to assist those that were by providing the full support of our Support Team directly. No forum topics have been deleted. But they are closed once resolved as this one will too.
QUOTE
Not everyone was affected and it was only under rare circumstances that caused the effect you had, however,we can understand even 1 is too many
Paid users have the access to the Support Center which is recommended for them. We are trying very hard to accomodate free users here with our Support team which they generally do not have access to.
Closing resolved threads is standard operating procedures here due to other posters jumping in with unrelated issues and or ill-advised even if well intended advice on "what worked for them". This is resolved once that customer is turned over to the customer service team. If the OP's original problems somehow remain unresolved or he has additional related problems, he is welcome to open a new topic. There is nothing hidden here. All information about this problem is posted openly here in the forum and anyone with a new problem is encouraged to post here. The notice about the bug update was put into a Pinned topic for extra visibility to encourange anyone who needed help to get it.
There have been roughly 15 or so cases out of the only 150,000 or so who downloaded the problem update. That equates to about .01% of those who even got the update during that time period. This means most users were NOT affected we will continue to assist those that were by providing the full support of our Support Team directly. No forum topics have been deleted. But they are closed once resolved as this one will too.
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