SGE5.50 Client (+5.40) won't install on Dell Vostro 3300, Intel i5-430M XP-Pro

We have a user that just purchased a Thinkpad T410i (Core i3-330M) with Windows XP Pro, and installed SGN 5.40 on it.  Everything seems to work fine, but it takes quite a long time to boot (after the POA, it sits and waits for around 2-3 minutes before booting Windows), and we get an ERROR = 0x02 message after the POA.

Have you gotten any Thinkpads with the Core i3/i5/i7 and had any luck on them?

Hi ssij,

I've not received the new laptops yet. These are a Lenovo T510s with core-i5 and a X201 again with core-i5. Both will be running 7 pro but I will be testing XP (SP3) on both with SGE5.50 (which is the new version of SGN 5.40). I'll start testing on the 510 since that's closest to your model and report back.

Matt

How's the testing going?  Did you ever get in the Thinkpad T510?

We're supposed to be getting in a new Latitude E5410 for testing, so I'll let you know what happens with that.

Hi,

Well the T510's haven't arrived yet but an X201 (same core-i5) showed up yesterday. So, I've just finished the 7-64 business install of that, ghosted it off and now put XP-32 Pro on for testing this. Nearly there, just need to get the native AHCI working and I'll put SGE5.50 on to test. Should have some idea by the end of play tomorrow.

Bear with me!

Matt

Hi all,

Happy to report that SGNClient.msi (5.50) installed without problems on the Lenovo X201 XP-Pro (SP3). This is a Core i5-520M 2.40hz running on the Intel "5 series 6 port SATA AHCI controller". Need to compare versions and base kernel driver versions now with the Vostro 3300 to see if any of the drivers are newer/interchangeable that can cause the installation failure on the Dell. I had to perform a manual XP-Pro (SP3) install finding all the drivers from Lenovo and Intel so I may have considerably newer drivers than the Dell base drivers on the Vostro.

To be clear, the failed machine we're testing on is a Dell Vostro 3300 with a core-i5 430M. The problem occurs immediately after installing the SGNClient.msi. After rebooting, the machine initialises the boot partition and restarts as you'd expect. It then continues to load 'Safeguard Enterprise is loading' then onto the blue Sophos screen next onto a black screen (which we interpret as the normal os loading screen) followed by an error 0x02, a reboot and then through similar screens again where this time, it hangs with a 'page fault' shown.

The above is prior to any policy being applied, this is just the base SGNCLient.msi at this stage failing. Almost identical errors on 5.40 and very similar on SGEasy 4.50. The same error is apparent if I run the Sata controller in compatibility mode so this doesn't appear to be a new controller issue, just some kind of hardware/driver incompatibility somewhere.

I have a whole batch of these laptops on order which is on hold awaiting the outcome of Sophos/Utimaco support finding a solution. I may have to switch to Lenovo if this prooves fruitless or (help me!) Symantec if no solution is found quickly.

Matt

Have you tried using the hotkeys to disable IDE compatibility (Shift F6 if I remember correctly) on the Dell?  I know that we've had machines where that error = 0x02 message appears (most recently, on a Thinkpad T410i and a Panasonic CF-W8, both running XP Pro SP3 and SGN 5.40), but if they are running XP they generally will boot just fine.

Hi,

Yes. We tried the Shift-F6 option (and shift-f7) to disable AHCI etc and switch back to compatibility mode. The exact sequence we tried (pasted from the support log running on this) was:

Shift-F6 did not help, it made the "error=0x02" go away but the OS still does not boot. I tried other hotkeys, and Shift-F7 seems to be responsible for the page fault. Without the page fault, the machine is now in an endless reboot cycle, and I was able to capture the error message in the last step (error=0x02 is gone):

(1) after the BIOS screen, a black screen appears:

Copyright (C)...
SafeGuard Enterprise is starting.
Please wait .

(2) then a blue Sophos screen appears,

(3) after about 10 seconds, the screen turns black, then a mouse pointer appears, and the blue Sophos screen comes back with a window in the screen center, saying "Autologon will continue shortly".

(4) after a few seconds, the window disappears, then the screen turns black again with SafeGuard is loading OS now! BlInitializeLibrary failed 0xc0000001

(5) then the process repeats with the BIOS screen and then (1).

We are having the same issue with SGN 5.50 client on Lenovo M90 (core i5 processor) desktop PCs we are preparing for some of our work-at-home users.  We have tried the latest bios upgrade, all of the shift+fx combinations, and even tried swapping out the disk drive for a lower capacity drive.  Nothing seems to help.

Sophos have recognised this as a fault but have not yet published a date for a patch. I wouldn't hold your breath, It's been 3 months for me, the next version 5.50.1 is not due out until next month and there's no guarantee that'll have any necessary fixes in it.

I'm evaluating a competing product at the moment to get around this bug. I'll may end up dumping half my license count and making the switch.

Matt

I'm running various new Lenovo laptops (T510, W510, X201, etc) with the new Intel i series chips with Windows 7 Enterprise x32 / x64 and all seem to be fine.

SGN 5.50

Fingers crossed it will be okay for the XP SP3 Clients on the same hardware.

John