Windows 8.1 issue | Kids Safe app | Parental Controls AUTO-REMOVED

[PaulyD]

Hello,

Asking the community, as I've been running in EXHAUSTIVE CIRCLES with the support-experts at Kaspersky Labs support.

Kaspersky Premium has been working, flawlessly, on an older desktop that I have reserved for kids and guests. Hence, why it's still on an older O/S. It's fully locked down, in regards to the standard User's ability to affect change.

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CALL OUT : I'm not here to entertain lectures, correct as they may be, on the aged O/S which, earlier this year, saw Microsoft cease its support / patching.

Point being, during the prior AUTO-installed Version-Update of Kaspersky Premium a few months ago, and without my consent, it (1) REMOVED my ability to access Parental Controls, (2) attempted but failed to auto-engage Kids Safe, and (3) REMOVED the prior settings I had engaged.  You heard me correctly - Kaspersky now allows ANYONE to download EXE, ZIP et al. , contrary to my former settings / preferences.

To provide added insight, I had long ago opted-out of their lackluster "Kids Safe".  This action auto-enables the Parental Controls feature inside the main Kaspersky Premium app.  The feature and its settings were working perfectly, prior to aforementioned auto-update, wherein I had settings such as DISALLOWING ALL users from performing downloads (such as EXE and ZIP), with the exception of the Local Admin.  As stated, this was working flawlessly and is a standard security practice on any computer.

The support team then asked me to manually install Kids Safe, providing me with a download URL to that installer.  This doesn't work nor does it throw any errors or logs as to why .. it merely completes without any sign of Kids Safe being present - desktop icon, Start Menu, or on the hard drive itself.

On my own, I did a FULL uninstall of Kaspersky Premium, rebooted, followed by a full install and from-scratch reconfigure.  Despite this rigorous attempt, neither Parental Controls re-appeared .. nor did Kids Safe engage even after the app's initial launch prompted me about Kids Safe .. showing the PhD's review .. etc.  NADA. 

The support team requested I provide them with a "Traces Archive" data-collection, using their support tool, to which I gladly obliged.  They responded a week or so later with this:

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Our experts have just replied to us and we can see the following registry entry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\KasperskyLab\\AVP21.13\environment]
"SuggestSafeKids"="0"

It shows, that Parental Control must work on this PC. Probably it is the bug.

As most savvy users will note, this HKLM Registry area is NOT accessible for changes; not even for the Local Admin.

I immediately responded, asking for insight on how that may be changed ... perhaps, by a special boot-time fix they could supply.  This request was completely ignored.  Instead, they next asked to Remote into my computer.  As much as I do appreciate and promote Kaspersky Labs products, I don't wish to allow anyone into my private network ... especially, without even providing a hint as to their plan of action.  Preposterous request, at best.

The support team then asked me to perform the following steps, despite my (prior numerous times) disclosing that their app no longer prompts to "Restore Parental Controls" nor allows me to perform even a stand-alone install of Kids Safe!

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If it does not work, please provide us traces, collected by the following scenario:

1. Open the main application window of Kaspersky.
2. Click Customer Service icon in the lower right part of the Kaspersky application window. This opens the Customer Service window.
3. Click the Support Tools link to open the Support Tools window.
4. Enable application tracing
5. Click on Save
6. Reboot PC
7. Open product and click on "Restore Parental Control" - We suppose, it can be just link on knowledge base article.
8. Click the Support Tools link to open the Support Tools window.
9. Disable application tracing
10. Click on Save
11. In the Support Tools Window, Click on Send Report to Customer Service.
12. Uncheck Operating System Information
13. Click on Save report on your computer
14. Enter the File Name Traces, save the archive in a location you will remember and click Save.
15. Please send us this Traces archive.

 

It is ENTIRELY UNACCEPTABLE that Kaspersky has not only removed my Parental Controls .. but their action has REVERTED my Security Preferences thereby allowing ANY user to download EXE, ZIP .. and, MOST DESTRUCTIVELY, drive-by downloads engineered specifically to exploit vulnerabilities on ALL O/S .. especially, those aged / out-of-support.

This action has now forced me to bear the expense of replacing that entire computer with newer hardware and current O/S, as it's too old to properly host the demands of a newer O/S.

Anyone with this experience, please opine.