[Nottingham] (Rant) How to Remove & Uninstall Symantec (Norton) antivirus

[Martin]

Or...

How to try to not waste an hour or so on the Symantec uninstaller that 
doesn't (or, rather refuses to) uninstall.

 From my recent experience on a Windows system, this has just got to 
rate as a "very fine example" of how the anti-virus proved to be more 
troublesome than whatever virus it was supposedly meant to clean up...

Or is this all part of some subtle sabotage to cripple any other 
anti-virus solutions that a user may want to change over to?...

Add whatever suitable expletives...


The story is nicely summarised:

Symantec uninstaller may not finish the job
http://windowssecrets.com/2008/02/07/01-Symantec-uninstaller-may-not-finish-the-job

How the $#@$# do I fully remove Norton from my PC?
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_to_fully_remove_norton_from_pc.html

Download and run the Norton Removal Tool
http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039

[Note that that STILL does NOT do a full cleanup!]

How To Get Norton Off Your System
http://pc1stop.com/PCHealth.html#norton

CCleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/


My success story was to:

Make a backup, backup the registry, and then to save a system restore point;

Run regedit and do a search and delete of all keys on all references to 
symantec;

Then run ccleaner to fix up the rest of the detritus in the registry;

(Somewhere in that lot, ensure that the registry startup keys that 
secretly run the Symantec/NAV system tray applications are deleted.)

Reboot. Cancel any Symantec installer dialogues. Delete all the Symantec 
folder trees (uncheck the 'read-only' property, and cancel any MSI 
pop-ups!);

Run ccleaner again for good measure and also use it to delete the 
Symantec entries in the add/remove programs list;

Reboot again and hopefully all is clean oncemore.


In the time to do that little lot, you could instead install your 
favourite Linux distro sans-anti-virus ;-)

It does make you wonder just how much time is lost and the level of 
frustration caused by the virus and anti-virus malarky on Windows...


All just a recent "user experience" and some personal observations of 
mine! Not to be wished on others...


Cheers All,
Martin

-- 
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Martin Lomas
martin at ml1.co.uk
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