Network connections are not available after uninstall Endpoint Protection client
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Network connections are not available after uninstall Endpoint Protection client

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Article ID: 156146

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Updated On:

Products

Endpoint Protection

Issue/Introduction

After uninstalling a Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) client from control panel, the Network Interfaces are not available.

No error message appears. Network adapters may display an error condition in Device Management.

Or if you run cleanwipe to uninstall SEP client, following message appears:

Cleanwipe will stop processing the clean operation because the current user is both a member of the Network Configuration Operators group and the Administrators group.
Please remove the current user from Network Configuration Operators group and restart CleanWipe again.

Environment

SEP 12.x and 14.x

Cause

This issue occurs when the user account is a member of both Administrators and Network Control Operators. According to Microsoft, user accounts should not be members of both groups:

Note If a user is both a member of the Network Configuration Operators group and the Administrators group, the user cannot install any product that uses a Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) Intermediate Filter driver or Lightweight Filter driver. The failure is silent, that is, no error messages and no messages are logged to event logs or setupapi logs. Users should be either in the Network Configuration Operators group or the Administrators group, but not both groups.

Resolution

To prevent the problem, use an account that is not a member of the Network Configuration Operators group to uninstall SEP client or run CleanWipe.

To fix the problem when this has already happened, delete the affected network interface drivers and allow Windows to reinstall them.