Patrick O'Keefe

Ah. I did not do a manual Database update and re-power on. I’m pretty sure a database update has happened by now but there hasn’t been a rebooot since immediately after the rename. I’ll give your procedure a try and if it doesn’t work I’ll do a manual rename. On the other hand, I don’t really care what device name is in MyKaspersky has as long as it doesn’t think that both the old and new names are active, thereby wasting a seat count.

Well, I went ahead and did the name change. I uninstalled KIS on the computer, went to My.Kaspersy Devices and performed the Disconnect procedure. That computer then disappeared from my Devices. I then changed the Device Name on Windows, reinstalled KIS, and logged onto MyKaspersy from the KIS GUI. The re-connection seemed to work but MyKaspersky Devices again shows the old name. My router and other computers on the LAN show the new device name so I know the change was successful. Why does MyKaspersky still have the old name? KIS seems to work on the computer so this is maybe not important, but it makes me uncomfortable.

KIS 21.3.10.39(h) Windows 10 build 19043.1526 I have an old test/sandbox PC that is about to undergo changes. I would like to be sure KIS is still validly licensed thought the process. I am going to change the device name in Windows. Do I need to uninstall KIS and reinstall it after the change? My.Kaspersky Devices know the old name. do I need to disconnect the device before making the name change? A few days after the name change I am going to replace the PC’s motherboard and CPU. This effectively makes it a new computer. I’m sure I need to uninstall KIS before the change and resinstall it after. Is there anything else I need to do?

You seem to think that logic will lead all analytical thinkers to the same conclusion. If that were true all philosophers would be out of business. You complain that KIS did not prompt of confirmation, but you’ve been told several times in this thread that KIS did prompt. You received a prompt which also asked if you wanted to continue receiving prompts or KIS should suppress such prompts for x minutes. Perhaps it is the wording of the prompt rather than the logic behind it that has bothered / confused you.

Thank you! Actually, I’ll probably disable rather than delete the upgrade task, but that sounds like the best solution. Then I don’t have to determine which type of registry record to create. I will have to remember check, and probably re-disable, whenever I manually do a KIS upgrade, but I’d have to add a new registry record each time if I used the registry technique.

That is going to be difficult to test. One of my copies of KIS 20 automatically upgraded 8 weeks ago. The other 3 have not. I can change the registry on 2 of them, but I won’t know when the lack of upgrade is because of the registry change or just coincidence. Actually, one of the 3 un-upgraded copies I replaced with a competitive product. If I reinstall KIS 2020 maybe the installation will trigger an automatic upgrade. I’ll try that. Can I add the registry record before reinstalling KIS, or will the installation delete the registry record?

Maybe I’m blind, but it looks like I’m supposed to set IsVersionUpdateEnabled to both a double word value of 0 and a string value of 0. That didn’t seem right, but I tried it anyway using a .reg file containing Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\KasperskyLab\AVP20.0\environment] "IsVersionUpdateEnabled"=dword:00000000 "IsVersionUpdateEnabled"="0" As expected, it said only one value. (I don’t remember which, but I suspect the last specified.) I then built 2 files - one with each value. The registry is set with whichever is run last. Are there supposed to be 2 different names there? BTW, I got that exact same information from Igor Kurzin so I suspect there’s either some trick to doing this that I’ve missed, or that there is a Kaspersky Knowledge Base article containing an error.

Igor Kurzin sent me that in a PM but now that you posted it publicly I guess I can talk about it. If I stay with Kaspersky products I will definitely use that registry hack. I looks like I have to change AVP20.0 to whatever values the new versions use. And I will need to always have an offline installer for the previous version in case of major problems (and hope that the latest Kaspersky database is compatible with that previous version). Having experienced a KIS upgrade at about the most inconvenient possible time, I have the strong impression that Kaspersky really does not care about its impact on customers. Unfortunately, I can find no acceptable alternative. (I can find no alternative security suite that contain both good antivirus and god firewall capabilities. One or the other, but not both.)

No. I want just the opposite of a quick upgrade. I want to delay the upgrade until I’m ready! As it happens, I’m ready now, but I was absolutely not ready when I the upgrade on my one PC happened. It happened with the reboot immediately following my upgrade of Win10 1909 to 2004. If Kaspersky developers think that’s an appropriate time to install a new version of KIS then they have no respect for their customers. We need to be able to control when upgrades happen.

I have no particular desire to the latest version yet. I do have a desire to control when I install new versions of mission-critical software such as security software. Because I can no longer do that with KIS I am looking at other vendor’s products. Allowing us to choose when we upgrade would not force Kaspersky to support any more versions than they support right now. They are obviously currently supporting the 2020 and 2021 versions. They could publish the end-of-support date for the old version and let us decide when to make the move.

This sort of a continuation of thread https://community.kaspersky.com/kaspersky-internet-security-13/how-to-obtain-an-offline-installer-11454?postid=57171#post57171 asking about offline installer and preventing automatic upgrades. In that thread I was informed that KIS will now automatically upgrade to version 2021 and beyond. However, only 1 of my 4 computers has done that that upgrade. The other three stayed at 20.0.14.1085(m). I’ve confirmed that I do not have the registry hack in place that disables automatic upgrade. Has Kaspersky stopped doing the automatic upgrades or is there something special about these computers? (All are running Win10 2004.) If Kaspersky has reversed its policy on automatic upgrades I will stop looking for alternatives to KIS.

the workaround to get back to version 2020 is still there and you can get it via technical support. I guess my opinion is very different. I think a user should always have a copy the installer of the previous version of any important software, and should be able reinstall that previous version without need to contact technical support and without fear that that previous version will not automatically upgrade itself. The vendor would not need to maintain downloads for more than the previous and current versions, and would not even have to provide support for the previous version. You have suggested one workaround. I suggest that a better workaround is to find a competitive product that allows customers to control their upgrades.

Igor sent me instructions to implement the auto-upgrade circumvention. It contains a simple registry hack. This tells me: Anyone that makes enough public noise can obtain the circumvention. It would be trivial for Kaspersky to implement this as a user option. There is nothing in KIS that requires this auto-upgrade function. Kaspersky Labs does not care that is function causes problems for users.The statement “For situations when the version 2020 is needed due to issues with stability in newer version, there is a workaround” misses a larger point. Actually, it misses 2 points: The upgrade itself is disruptive even if there are no stability problems with the new version. The user needs to be able to schedule this upgrade so that it does not happen during important work. It especially needs to immediately following a reboot. (My KIS upgrade immediately followed the final reboot of a Win 10 2004 upgrade - a truly terrible time.) If the upgrade has already happened and causes problems, there needs to be a way to reinstall a back-level version. These back-level versions need to be available to all users at all times. We should not have to open a problem ticket or PM Igor right when KIS is misbehaving. Being able to download any patch level of the previous version would be reasonable.It bothers me that Kaspersky Labs doesn’t already understand (or care about) this. It tells me they have lost touch of their customer base. I am now trying to determine if other security software vendors have the same policies. I would not want to switch to another security package only to discover it also does an automatic upgrade.

I have submitted the request/complaint, and, even though I’ve recently purchased a 2-year renewal of my 5-computer KIS license, I’ve started looking for a replacement product. In my opinion, Kaspersky makes the best security product for the home and small office computer systems, but any product as critical as a security package has to provide a way to revert to a stable previous release. Automatic upgrade is incompatible with system stability. Hopefully Kaspersky will soon provide some way to make this automatic upgrade behavior optional, and will provide links to back-level versions of the software.

I certainly would not mind hearing an explanation from a Kaspersky employee. I would like it even more if he could officially register my complaint about the policy. I doubt that losing one customer is going to bother the decision-makers at Kaspersky, but I would like them to know that that is the effect of their policy. (I just hope I can find a good alternative to KIS.)