I'm off ADSL for a bit so bought a vodafone 3g dongle. Trouble is it won't install. I tried to run the setup but get a "user account control" box asking me if I want to allow access to helper.exe I select allow but then get a "error reading setup initialization file" message.

Hard to check this out without proper net access, lol.

Running Vista, account is admin, win firewall and Avast AV.

Any ideas what I should turn off to get it to work?

I'm off ADSL for a bit so bought a vodafone 3g dongle. Trouble is it won't install. I tried to run the setup but get a "user account control" box asking me if I want to allow access to helper.exe I select allow but then get a "error reading setup initialization file" message.

Hard to check this out without proper net access, lol.

Running Vista, account is admin, win firewall and Avast AV.

Any ideas what I should turn off to get it to work?

If account is administrator it should work but odd you are getting the "user account control" box.

Try disabling Avast just in case.

What else do you have installed that could cause a conflict?

The other possibility I can think of is some form of virus, trojan etc that has reduced the administrator permissions.

Do you just have the one account or several?

You could try setting up a new administrator account call say "install" but if a permissions issue likely this new account will have the same permissions as the one you are using.

If you have problems creating a new account this would support theory of a virus etc.

If you can get access to another system download both Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool and Malwarebytes Antimalware and scan with both, a full scan for Malwarebytes.

However if either of these find anything they will remove it but they will not reset the account permissions.

I've dug out big old "Bertha", plugged her in and got the thing to work so the issue is the laptop. Tried disabling usr account control, as many Avast functions as possible, I think it also has spybot working in the background too.

Could be as you say, the machine is a little bloated from 4 year's use. Not sure how I'll get to sort that out but at the very least something works.

Edited 17 March, 201115 yr by 'daiking'

Likely an AV, antispyware or firewall issue.

Disable them all then install.