Norton NSc.exe Reporting "Bad Image"

Some users of Norton security products are reporting the NSc.exe process (Norton Security Client) displaying an error message upon launching as shown on the image below.

The most likely reason is a bug in the Norton product as described in their support forum, which should be fixed by running LiveUpdate and applying all patches.

Should this not resolve the problem, you can disable injection of 0patchLoaded.dll into NSc.exe.

As administrator, set the registry value HKLM\Software\0patch\ExcludeModules to "NSc.exe" (without quotes). Then to enforce this new setting without restarting your computer, change the value of HKLM\SOFTWARE\0patch\CallbackKeys\UnloadLoaderDll\Counter to any other number than it already has (this removes 0patch loader from all processes), and restart the 0patch Service.

This can be done using the following command-line script executed as administrator:

 PowerShell

reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\0patch /v ExcludeModules /t REG_SZ /d "NSc.exe" /f
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\0patch\CallbackKeys\UnloadLoaderDll /v Counter /t REG_DWORD /d $(Get-Random) /f
net stop 0patchService
net start 0patchService

 Command Prompt / cmd.exe

reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\0patch /v ExcludeModules /t REG_SZ /d "NSc.exe" /f
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\0patch\CallbackKeys\UnloadLoaderDll /v Counter /t REG_DWORD /d %random%%random% /f
net stop 0patchService
net start 0patchService