Event 7026: Boot-Start Device SBRE Failed to Load

I was getting this message when rebooting a Windows operating system:

Log Name:      System
Source:        Service Control Manager
Event ID:      7026
Level:         Error
Description:
The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
SBRE

In my case, the SBRE “device” is left over from a previously-uninstalled VIPRE Business Agent.

The manual uninstall instructions for VIPRE say to delete this registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SBRE

(Under that key, the ImagePath value points to C:\Windows\system32\drivers\SBREdrv.sys, which does not exist, hence the “failed to load” message.)

This post suggests running the following at a command prompt to remove the SBRE service:

sc delete SBRE

That command does delete the Services registry key. But it also removes the related Enum registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_SBRE

So the sc delete SBRE command seems more thorough.

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