Help Needed Uninstalling McAfee Security Centre

podgewalsh

I got a Dell Dimension 3100 about 4 months ago that came preinstalled with XP Prof and McAfee Security Centre. I got my hands on another version of AV software that I would prefer to use. I am unable to uninstall McAfee from the PC as there is no Add/Remove icon for it within the control panel and the instructions on McAfee's site do not work. Any advice on how to get rid would be really appreciated , dell have told me their s/w support line is a chargable service and as such I would need to pay for the instructions to manually remove this from the registry. On another note is the legality of this not questionable (preinstalling s/w that cannot be uninstalled?)

Ruu_Old

Weblog with info on how to remove McAfee Remember to back up your files before trying this.

podgewalsh

OK Thanks RUU , is it not a big MCdodge that MCAfee is this difficult to get rid of...

podgewalsh

Ruu wrote:

Weblog with info on how to remove McAfee Remember to back up your files before trying this.

Followed those instructions exactly and it still did not delete it totally from my system....When I bought a years subscription my machine behaves fine ! I was basically "forced" by Dell to purchase this s/w...not a happy camper , will NEVER buy off Dell again and will not recomend them to anyone as a result of this. No joy from their customer Service dept either!

Teamhair

Its a remove from the registry job- be careful!

8T8

podgewalsh try the Dell De-Crapifier it supports removing McAfee although if you have partially removed it already it may not work but worth a try perhaps.

Alun

I'm going to be doing this on a Dell PC next week, and Google'd for info.

Dell themselves have a section on it here ...

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?docid=B902D44749A145EC9638DBCE4F18EEE8&c=us&l=en&s=gen

Does that work? They do say you have to remove all the individual components first, before removing the Security Centre ... maybe that's the clue?

MunsterCycling

How about just backing up and reinstall OS without McAfee crud, nlite the OS install CD and away you go.

Munster

podgewalsh

Thanks for the links folks but I have already paid for it so I will wait until the "yearly" subscription expires and then I will wipe that sh1te from my machine , another bone of contention that I would have with Dell is that you dont actually get a copy of the O/S you have paid for on CD you have to use that crappy restore function , I mailed them about that also but I didnt get a reply.

zod

I have actually done this quite a few times this month and the *trick* is to not touch the install while logged in normally.. to many dependencies with process that are running even when services are stopped.

Go straight to safe mode ( F8 on startup ) and Add/remove and bingo.

If you got a failed Deinstall it's a pain in the ar$e:(

podgewalsh

I tried the Safe Mode option before making the purchase but there was no icon in the Add/Remove Program window...
Not too worry - thanks for the help anyways!