For the benefit of anyone else who has this problem, please be advised that Dell installed over 14,000 (that's right - FOURTEEN THOUSAND) of these files on my hard drive. The delete process alone will take a minimum of half an hour. Have fun purchasing Dell software.
I apologize for the issues you are having with the Dell Software. Which software did your company install? Is it server software? Which systems was it installed on?
It is apparently the Credant Software, which creates the CREDDB.CEF files - http://www.credant.com . I came here because the only options on that site are "leave a message and hope". A search of that site shows nothing relevant to our problem. Besides, a problem this bad really needs to have something public on the Internet that people can find to explain it.
It was installed on every one of our systems by company order. That clobbered the work of every developer that I am in contact with. Not only did it clobber the local files but it also managed to clobber the copies in Team Foundation Server so the net result is that everyone on the development team lost about a week's worth of work. Did I mention that this was right in the "crunch" time when we are trying to roll out a very important piece of software? That, too.
But even uninstalling the thing didn't stop the bad adventures with that software -- and even the remedies I have applied so far apparently haven't stopped the problems with it. For example, I tried to go out and delete all the CREDDB.CEF files. So I searched in File Explorer, found them all, and hit the Delete key. (I would have used a shotgun on the hard drive, but the company won't allow that unless I take it off company property.)
It goes and deletes a number of them, but leaves over 600 of them on the disk, for some strange reason. So I search for these again and, they show up in file search, just like before. I tried to delete them individually from the File Explorer search list and it tells me that the files are no longer there. That is, File Explorer finds them in a search but then tells you that they aren't there when you try to do anything with them. They are "ghost" files. (At this point, I am beginning to think that this software was written by some root kit hacker from Russia.)
So I go to the individual directory where the file is supposedly located, and I turn on all the flags to display hidden files, system files, and whatever else you got. When I get to the directory, the file does not show up. It shows up in File Explorer search, but not anywhere else. As near as I can tell from my random survey of the 614 files it left is that most of them are located deep within the directory structure of Visual Studio, in directories that I may need, so I can't just delete 614 entire directories to solve the problem.
So, you say (trying to be helpful) "Why don't you just delete all of Visual Studio and reinstall it to get rid of those files that Dell never should have put there in the first place?"
Glad you asked. You see, we also discovered that the Dell (Credant) software destroys the ability to do a Windows system restore. Therefore, whenever I try to Repair Visual Studio or anything else, it throws a boatload full of errors about how it can't create a restore point. (Note that this is still AFTER our support people have taken this off our machines, so restore is probably going to require taking a power sander to the hard drive and starting over.) That's beside the minor point that all the developers may have to do that, and it takes most of a day to complete. (Where do we send the bill?) Apparently, the uninstall process is flawed, too.
For the benefit of the search engines and anyone else who is looking in the wrong place for the problem created by Dell, the search terms are: "project file could not be loaded. Invalid data at line 1, position 1", "Visual Studio". Search for that and you will get nothing relevant to the actual problem. With any luck they will find this thread.
BTW, we have notified Microsoft that the problem we thought was created by them was actually created by Dell. So, hopefully, more of these problems will get kicked back to Dell.
Also, I received a note from one of your people objecting to the fact that I had used a word to describe Dell software that roughly equates to "the fully digested remains of yesterday's meal". They claimed it was profanity. Please inform your people that the word I used comes from the once most common word for toilet -- so named after Thomas C***per (my asterisks to protect sensitive people), who once dominated the toilet industry. When people were going to relieve themselves they would commonly tell people that they are going to the (insert famous brand name for toilets). That was considered the polite thing to do because it referred to going to a recognized brand name product, as opposed to saying something crude like "I am going to take a big ****" (using a different word to refer to the thoroughly digested remains of yesterday's meal). And, in fact, in my lifetime, I have heard this same word -- the word that comes from a famous brand name for toilets -- used in "polite company" -- good, upright church-going folks, and no one fainted.
But forgive me if my education on this subject is a bit more advanced than your forum monitors. What I meant to say was that the Dell software seems to be equivalent to "thoroughly digested remains of yesterday's meal."
Now some of you may think that is an unfair description of the Dell software. I informed one of my coworkers of this and her response was that such people need to come experience what we did. That Dell encryption software is gone from our machines, (we hope) but still causing problems. But, to be fair, maybe a better comparison is to AIDS because, once you have it, there is nothing you can do to completely get rid of it. Once infected, you are that way for life. You never really know when the symptoms are going to show up again.
We also believe that whoever bought it for our company didn't understand the point about system restores and what they are good for. If they had asked us, we would have opposed the purchase, for sure.
wm97
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February 4th, 2015 07:00
For the benefit of anyone else who has this problem, please be advised that Dell installed over 14,000 (that's right - FOURTEEN THOUSAND) of these files on my hard drive. The delete process alone will take a minimum of half an hour. Have fun purchasing Dell software.
DELL-Jesse L
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February 4th, 2015 10:00
wm97,
I apologize for the issues you are having with the Dell Software. Which software did your company install? Is it server software? Which systems was it installed on?
wm97
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February 4th, 2015 11:00
It is apparently the Credant Software, which creates the CREDDB.CEF files - http://www.credant.com . I came here because the only options on that site are "leave a message and hope". A search of that site shows nothing relevant to our problem. Besides, a problem this bad really needs to have something public on the Internet that people can find to explain it.
It was installed on every one of our systems by company order. That clobbered the work of every developer that I am in contact with. Not only did it clobber the local files but it also managed to clobber the copies in Team Foundation Server so the net result is that everyone on the development team lost about a week's worth of work. Did I mention that this was right in the "crunch" time when we are trying to roll out a very important piece of software? That, too.
But even uninstalling the thing didn't stop the bad adventures with that software -- and even the remedies I have applied so far apparently haven't stopped the problems with it. For example, I tried to go out and delete all the CREDDB.CEF files. So I searched in File Explorer, found them all, and hit the Delete key. (I would have used a shotgun on the hard drive, but the company won't allow that unless I take it off company property.)
It goes and deletes a number of them, but leaves over 600 of them on the disk, for some strange reason. So I search for these again and, they show up in file search, just like before. I tried to delete them individually from the File Explorer search list and it tells me that the files are no longer there. That is, File Explorer finds them in a search but then tells you that they aren't there when you try to do anything with them. They are "ghost" files. (At this point, I am beginning to think that this software was written by some root kit hacker from Russia.)
So I go to the individual directory where the file is supposedly located, and I turn on all the flags to display hidden files, system files, and whatever else you got. When I get to the directory, the file does not show up. It shows up in File Explorer search, but not anywhere else. As near as I can tell from my random survey of the 614 files it left is that most of them are located deep within the directory structure of Visual Studio, in directories that I may need, so I can't just delete 614 entire directories to solve the problem.
So, you say (trying to be helpful) "Why don't you just delete all of Visual Studio and reinstall it to get rid of those files that Dell never should have put there in the first place?"
Glad you asked. You see, we also discovered that the Dell (Credant) software destroys the ability to do a Windows system restore. Therefore, whenever I try to Repair Visual Studio or anything else, it throws a boatload full of errors about how it can't create a restore point. (Note that this is still AFTER our support people have taken this off our machines, so restore is probably going to require taking a power sander to the hard drive and starting over.) That's beside the minor point that all the developers may have to do that, and it takes most of a day to complete. (Where do we send the bill?) Apparently, the uninstall process is flawed, too.
For the benefit of the search engines and anyone else who is looking in the wrong place for the problem created by Dell, the search terms are: "project file could not be loaded. Invalid data at line 1, position 1", "Visual Studio". Search for that and you will get nothing relevant to the actual problem. With any luck they will find this thread.
BTW, we have notified Microsoft that the problem we thought was created by them was actually created by Dell. So, hopefully, more of these problems will get kicked back to Dell.
Also, I received a note from one of your people objecting to the fact that I had used a word to describe Dell software that roughly equates to "the fully digested remains of yesterday's meal". They claimed it was profanity. Please inform your people that the word I used comes from the once most common word for toilet -- so named after Thomas C***per (my asterisks to protect sensitive people), who once dominated the toilet industry. When people were going to relieve themselves they would commonly tell people that they are going to the (insert famous brand name for toilets). That was considered the polite thing to do because it referred to going to a recognized brand name product, as opposed to saying something crude like "I am going to take a big ****" (using a different word to refer to the thoroughly digested remains of yesterday's meal). And, in fact, in my lifetime, I have heard this same word -- the word that comes from a famous brand name for toilets -- used in "polite company" -- good, upright church-going folks, and no one fainted.
But forgive me if my education on this subject is a bit more advanced than your forum monitors. What I meant to say was that the Dell software seems to be equivalent to "thoroughly digested remains of yesterday's meal."
Now some of you may think that is an unfair description of the Dell software. I informed one of my coworkers of this and her response was that such people need to come experience what we did. That Dell encryption software is gone from our machines, (we hope) but still causing problems. But, to be fair, maybe a better comparison is to AIDS because, once you have it, there is nothing you can do to completely get rid of it. Once infected, you are that way for life. You never really know when the symptoms are going to show up again.
We also believe that whoever bought it for our company didn't understand the point about system restores and what they are good for. If they had asked us, we would have opposed the purchase, for sure.