Hello Badmachismo,
Vista is in, what we call a 'Mod-Auth' Tamper state. There are 2 types of Mod-Auth tampers.
1) A critical system file was modified On Disk - What this means is that the file, located on the hard drive, and was modified in some way. This can be caused by a malicious program (spyware, malware, and virus) or by manual file modification (by a user of the system). There is also a very small chance that an Update may fail in mid-update and cause this type of issue. As a safety mechanism, Updates are made so that if they fail, they roll back any updating that was done before the failure, but there is an off-chance that the roll back did not occur.
2) A critical system file was modified In Memory - What this means is the file itself (on the hard drive) is un-modified, but the code, from that file, running in the system, was modified in some way. and is usually caused by a running program that is incompatible with Vista.
Because there is No Mismatched files listed under the "File Scan Data-->" line of your Diagnostic Report, your issue is an In Memory Mod-Auth and therefore caused by an incompatible program. This means there is a program install and running that is trying to access parts of the OS that Vista does not allow which by definition means it is incompatible with Vista.
In addition to why a Tamper occurs, it's also important to understand how Vista detects the Tamper event. There is a Service that runs in Vista that detects a Tamper to a Critical System file. But this Service runs randomly, so if you were to install an incompatible program and run it, Vista (most likely) would not immediately enter a Tamper State and it could take some time for the Tamper to be detected. The important point to note is that the moment Vista detects the Tamper, you know that the program that caused the tamper, is currently running.
Below I have provided a number of steps to help you identify the program that is causing the tamper:
First, go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931699/ and confirm that you do not have any of the programs known to cause this type of issue.
Second, in your Diagnostic report above, you can see the line that starts with 'TTS Error:' followed by a bunch numbers: M:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx- This is the Tamper Time Stamp and it breaks down like this:
(Year) (Month) (Day) (Time in 24format) (Millisecond)
M:2008 09 25 1843 17194-
Note, I also see a "K" type Tamper Time Stamp. The “K“stands for Kernel Mode tamper. This is a minor tamper and is most likely directly related to the Mod-Auth tamper. Once you remove the program that is causing the Mod-Auth tamper, I believe that the Kernel mode tamper will stop as well.
(Year) (Month) (Day) (Time in 24format) (Millisecond)
K:2008 09 25 1940 42680-
Now that you know the time of the tamper, you can now try to connect that time with a program.
1) Login to Vista and select the option that launches an Internet Browser
2) Type into the browser address bar: %windir%\system32\perfmon.msc and hit Enter
3) When asked if you want to Open or Save this file, select Open
4) In the left hand panel, click Reliability Monitor
5) Click on the “System Stability Chart” above the date 09/25
6) Below the chart, in the “System Stability Report” section look at the report titled "Software (Un) Installs for 09/25/2008
7) Look for any program that shows "Application Install" in the 'Activity' column.
8) Since the process that detects tampers runs randomly, it can take up to 3 days for the process to detect the tamper and set Vista to a Tamper State. Because of this, please repeat steps 5) thru 7) for the dates 09/24/2008, 09/23/2008, 09/22/2008.
This could tell you what programs were installed on or around the Tamper date and should help you narrow down the possible programs that could be causing the issue . Unfortunately, if you installed the program (say) on 09/01/2007, but you didn't run (and, hence, prompted the tamper state) till 02/26/2008[C6] , this process may not be helpful. The removal of any application you may have installed recently could go a long way to troubleshooting these issues as well since it may fall outside of the 3 day time frame described above.
Note: Since everyone has different programs installed on their computer, it is extremely hard for support to figure out what program is causing the problem, but if you still need assistance in identifying the Incompatible Program, please create a no cost support request at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=52029
Thank you,
Stephen Holm, MS
WGA Forum Manager
Stephen Holm
