Can't use, uninstall, or reinstall HP Support Assistant [ Edited ]

[frankd14612]

I had a hard disk crash and reinstalled from a backup, but the restore wasn't complete. Things are working well enough, but not 100%. The main thing is that My HP Support Assistant and PC Health won't work, and I can't uninstall or reinstall them. They're not in the list of installed programs. I get the message that there's already a version of the Support Assistant on my drive, so the download won't reinstall or update it.

I've got an HP Pavilion (All-In-One) MS-225 with Win7 Home Premium, 64-bit. It's a year and a half old so it's out of warranty. Is there any way out of this bind? Thanks!

Frank

UPDATE: I was just able to get the update to run, but it gave me this error message:

"HP Support Assistant Application Update / Your system does not meet the minimum requirements for this update. / Upate has been cancelled. (1602)"

[frankd14612]

I put this message: "Your system does not meet the minimum requirements for this update. Update has been cancelled. (1602)" into the HP question box (at http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/documentSubCategory?tmp_task=solveCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&os=... ) and this is the response I got: "You searched for: Your system does not meet the minimum requirements for this update. Update has been cancelled . (1602)

No results matched your search. "

Could this mean that there is no meaning or solution to this error message or my problem?

Frank

(Sorry for the bolding and different font sizes. These came along with copying and pasting the text and I couldn't fix them.)

[Arniceous]

Hello! I too have the same issue. What I have been able to discover is the fallowing: The error could also indicate that an existing copy of the support assistant is already installed.

However that doesn’t solve our issue for the fact remains there isn’t an uninstall option within the program such as an unwise.exe nor is the support assistant listed in program and features within windows default programs in order to gracefully uninstall it.

There are 3rd party uninstall utilities such as "Revo Uninstaller" which do a great job however since the program is somehow embedded and not listed in the usual since Revo fails to see it.

There are possibly some alternatives; such as hard deleting the HP Health Check Folder in "C:\Program files (86x) Hewlett-Packard" and cleaning the registry with 'Registry Crawler" however the folder is much too small and assuming showing hidden folders as a workaround doesn't seem like the answer either.

HP sold off their home computer/laptop division so who knows what will become of this issue. They make no money fixing these issues and technicians are less and less. So the Logo HP™ will just continue selling hardware designed once again by someone else. Maybe one day soon they will create a patch for everyone to simply click on. But I doubt it!

Ultimately Microsoft Windows Updates will have major hardware and software update recommendations. There are also free programs such as "SlimWare Utilities" http://www.slimwareutilities.com/slimdrivers.php to keep you current with the latest set of drivers when the defualt drivers listed on HP are not  sufficient.

Good luck frank,

Arniceous - California

[frankd14612 · Accepted solution]

Arniceous,

Thanks for your reply and suggestions.

After a lot of trial and error, I finally got it to work by doing the following: First I downloaded and installed the latest update to HP Update. Then I renamed the HP Support Assistant folder (didn't want to do any deleting yet) by adding ".old" to it and retried downloading and installing the latest update for the Assistant. This time it worked and it installed!

So at this point my PC is OK again and back to where it was before the hard disk crash/restore. Everything HP now works as it should.

I hope this may help you and others in the effort to fix what HP didn't have help or a fix for.

Frank D

[Arniceous]

Nice frank glad I  stummbled back onto this thread to see you fixed it. I don't use this ultily all that much but I'll look into renaming the folder good idea!

[frankd14612]

Arniceous, I'm glad to have been of help to you. Frank

[DaveVines]

I could not get Support Assistant to either work or be updated. Had every error I have seen listed on these forums. I have Windows 7 and have a directory C:\cwsetup. When I downloaded the latest version of Support Assistant, a folder was created there with the name of the folder being the number of the update.exe, like C:\swsetup\SP54620 and it contained a file msiinstaller.exe. I right-clicked on that file, selected Run As Administrator on the pop-up menu and the new version installed without a hitch and everything works perfectly now.

[frankd14612]

Dave, Thanks for adding your solution. :-) Frank D

[DaveVines]

You're welcome.

[martinmm]

hp will not detect any expansion for the video cache size, so if you motherboard is less than 128 - doomed are the results for installing. this ploy to sell more computers (i believe) is unconscionable.