A strange error came to my attention today while working with a client.  I was trying to see why his pc would periodically stop responding.  In looking at the Windows Event Viewer (Control Panel –> Administrative Tools –>  Event Viewer –> System) the following error was discovered.

“The hardlock service failed to start due to the following error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O error”.

 

     It took a little digging around to find the answer and here is what the Hardlock service does – It is used with software that require what is called a hardware lock or dongle to make the software work. (Dongle = A piece of hardware that attaches to a computer in order to make a piece of secured software run. A dongle in this sense is used as a high-end form of security to prevent the unauthorized copying of software, since making a copy of the hardware itself is much more difficult than simply copying the software)

     In the case of this customer, they used to run point of sale software from this pc that required the “dongle”, however when the point of sale software was removed, the part of the software that looked for the dongle stayed and kept looking for a piece of hardware that was no long on this machine.

     To correct this issue, (WARNING: Keep in mind that this will break the software that the dongle is used for if that software is still on the pc) all you need to do is run the following from the command prompt (Start –> Run –> CMD)

and just type HLDINST –remove (Type it just as you see it), and hit enter.

That will stop the Hardlock service and remove the registry entries belonging to the Hardlock driver.