Error 1324: The path RSA Security contains an invalid character (2)

Due to a security vulnerability found in the older version of the RSA agent, we upgraded the RSA agent for all Windows 2003 servers to 7.1.2.  Majority of the upgrade were smooth except the 2 Exchange 2003 servers.  When trying to upgrade the RSA agent on the Exchange servers to version 7.1.2, we encountered the below error message:

Error 1324: The path RSA Security contains an invalid character.

Removing the RSA related folders and registry settings mentioned in the previous blog post does not help. 

We found out that the service “RSA Authentication Agent Offline Local” still appear under Services although we have uninstalled the RSA agent which is of an older version.  The Status is blank although the Startup Type = Automatic.

Did a search for the registry key related to “RSA Authentication Agent Offline Local” and found the below registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\OASVC_Local

We deleted the key and did a reboot of the Windows 2003 x86 server. After that, we re-install the RSA Agent again without any problem.