Remove Anti Virus Applications
January 14, 2010 | Uninstaller Tips
Uninstalling antivirus applications can sometimes be a very tedious task, as these applications are usually highly integrated with the system and install several components designed to protect the user from all the threats a pc owner is faced with these days.
For this reason, many antivirus developers have taken the step to create special uninstallers for their applications to remove all files and clean up registry entries. These uninstallers are highly specialized and one usually only works on a particular version. So when you add updates to your antivirus, they become increasingly more difficult to remove.
The problem occurs if the uninstaller fails, and leaves behind invalid or corrupt registry entries, which causes system errors and slows down performance, or if a component is left out of the uninstall, it may run on your computer on its own long after the antivirus application has been removed. This could cause problems when you install a new antivirus as it may disrupt the install and damage the new antivirus application.
One option could be to attempt to remove the leftover files and applications manually, if you want to give it a try you can this post about how to uninstall software.
Another option, which has grown very much in popularity would be to get a third party software uninstaller, the developers of such programs have seen a great increase in demand for such software due to the complexity of new antivirus applications.
One such program is Perfect Uninstaller, and comes highly recommended, as it is not just for removing antivirus applications, but is also very good as a replacement to the windows add/remove function which usually does a very poor job in the removal of applications, leaving behind several corrupt, invalid and junk files on your computer.
So a dedicated software uninstaller comes highly recommended to ensure an uninstalled program is indeed uninstalled.
