Often, software vendors offer to install other related products during installation. And it often happens that the user does not pay attention to such software, but only later notices it on the computer. McAfee antivirus can be one such application, and many users have a question about how to completely remove it from Windows 10.
McAfee is a very common antivirus. What is its use? The fact that it is an extremely useful and simple program that can qualitatively protect a PC from threats. In addition, the software has good reviews. However, many users still do not need it for various reasons. For example, another licensed antivirus may already be installed on the computer. In this case, it becomes necessary to remove it, but removing it in the standard way in this case will not help, since the software leaves its traces throughout the system, including in the registry.
Let's clarify right away that there are several versions of the product - AntiVirus Plus, internet security, Total Protection, and McAfee LiveSafe.
Uninstallation of any of these versions is carried out by similar methods on an OS of any bit depth, be it x32 Bit or x64 Bit.
by the most the right way will become complete removal antivirus and related data manually. The sequence of actions in this case can be represented as follows:
If for some reason there is no certainty that the driver being removed is associated with Macafi, you can right-click on it and go to the "Properties" item.
In point " Digital Signatures We look at the name of the signatory. If McAfee appears in the name, the driver can be safely removed.
You can also clean the registry after removing the antivirus using automated tools, for example, the CCleaner program.
Just open this utility, go to the "Registry" item and click on "Scan for problems", and after the search is completed, click on "Fix All".
This completes the manual removal procedure. As seen, this method rather labor-intensive and requires the user to a large number time. For those who do not want to uninstall components manually, a separate utility has been developed, which we will consider further.
The MCPR Removal Tool is the simplest tool suitable for any user. However, we will analyze the last, alternative method - the use of various third-party utilities.
We will use, but other similar programs are able to successfully cope with the task. Such solutions are good because they remove not only the antivirus itself, but also all residual files and data.
IN this method everything is as simple as possible:
Some objects will remain, but the utility will immediately notify you that they will be deleted the next time you start the OS (in our case, only 8 files remained). We click "Finish".
The antivirus product is completely removed from the computer.
In some cases, the user is happy with the functioning of the antivirus, but wants to remove it because he quarantined the necessary files or does not allow any program to install correctly. In such cases, it is not necessary to resort to extreme measures.
If the necessary trusted files are quarantined, it is enough to simply restore them. Let's see how it's done:
If the antivirus interferes with the installation of any software or, for example, a game, you can simply disable it for a certain time.
Let's figure out how to turn it off for a while. In this case, everything is quite simple:
There may be situations when the antivirus needs to be disabled for a longer period of time. To do this, use the instructions below.
If you need to disable the antivirus, but do not want to remove it, you can disable all the services responsible for its operation. To do this, you need to carry out the following sequence of actions:
We examined in as much detail as possible all the methods of removal, as well as methods for temporarily disabling the defender. As you can see, there are a lot of options - from manual removal to the use of specialized utilities.
Antivirus is a complex program that is not removed by all known standard methods. You should not immediately resort to the uninstallation procedure, because it qualitatively protects the computer from various software threats and effectively protects the user while using the Internet. A clear indication for removal will be a replacement for McAfee already installed on the computer - any other antivirus product.
For greater clarity, we attach a detailed video instruction that explains the process of carrying out all the above operations.
Today I will show you how to remove McAfee antivirus completely from your computer if it is not deleted. The demo version of this program very often comes across on a disk with some software. And it turns out that this program is installed on a computer when it is absolutely not needed there. Or, it is possible that you used McAfee as a full-fledged antivirus, but at some point it stopped suiting you and you found a more suitable option for yourself. So how do you get rid of it? There are some pitfalls here, which I will now explain.
On the website of the developer of this antivirus, there is an instruction for removing McAfee antivirus from a computer. Click to read it. Page full on English language to translate it, you can use my article: "".
The most important participant in the McAfee antivirus endeavors was John McAfee. Why am I telling you this, you ask? The fact is that he was tortured with letters asking him to tell how to remove McAfee antivirus from a computer. In order not to bother and answer everyone, he recorded a video in which he said that now he has nothing to do with this antivirus. To see this, watch the video:
If you had thoughts of writing to him, then you can forget about it. Most likely, he will just give a link to this video.
Something a little departed from the topic of today's article. So, first of all, you need to try uninstalling McAfee with standard means Windows, namely: go to the "Start" menu, then - "Control Panel", then - "Uninstall a program". We find McAfee in the list and delete it by pressing the appropriate key: "Delete".
It would seem everything, but nothing like that! McAfee developers did their best and in 80% of cases you simply will not find this antivirus or module in the list. In the remaining 20% - find, remove, but system files the programs will still remain on your computer, thus you will not be able to install the antivirus you need.
Video on how to uninstall McAfee in the standard way.
How to uninstall McAfee if standard way uninstalling programs did not help you? We need a special utility, which is not difficult to download on the Internet. To make your search easier, you can download .
Running it, you will see a window with text in English. It does not make sense to translate it literally, it only says a greeting and a warning that the program will delete everything left from Mc Afee, and that's all we want. Click "Next".
You will see a condition license agreement. We put a tick in front of the word "Agree", which means: "I agree" and click on "Next".
In the next window, enter the characters, this is required in order to check whether you are a robot or a person. After entering the characters, click on the "Next" button.
Note: characters must be entered case-sensitive. If the picture shows capital letter, then enter a large ( upper case), if small, enter lower case.
Basically, that's all. Now we just need to just wait until the process bar reaches the end. This will take no more than 2 minutes, depending on the performance of your computer.
Upon completion of the removal process, the utility will prompt you to restart the computer using the "Restart" button. We press it, and when your Windows boots up, you can try installing another antivirus.
Congratulations, McAfee antivirus is now completely removed from your computer and you know how to completely remove McAfee.
If, after uninstallation, another antivirus is not installed, then it is possible that there are keys left in the registry. To do this, go to the registry and search for "McAfee". To more clearly see how this is done, you can read in the article: "".
Today, Windows operating systems are the most popular in the world. Therefore, most of the major PC manufacturers such as Acer, ASUS, Lenovo, Dell, HP and many others are launching computers with Windows 8 preinstalled and additional software on the market.
Additional software includes antiviruses and proprietary utilities from PC manufacturers. Most often, manufacturers install anti-virus software from McAfee on computers. Now there are many antivirus products that are loved by PC users. When buying a computer with the eight and McAfee products, users, by virtue of their favorite antivirus, are trying to replace McAfee with their favorite antivirus. In this article, we will take a detailed look at removing and replacing McAfee antivirus programs so that you don’t have a question - I can’t uninstall McAfee.
Now this company produces the following antivirus products:
Consider the detailed removal of LiveSafe and WebAdvisor. To do this, go to the uninstall programs window. You can access it via Control Panel” or using the “Run” window, in which you need to enter the command appwiz.cpl
The application can be launched using the Win + R keys.
It can be seen from the figure that the system has LiveSafe And web advisor. Opposite the LiveSafe application, right-click and click the " Delete/Change».
The uninstaller window should appear.
We put all the checkboxes, as in the figure and press the button Delete. After that, the uninstallation process will begin.
In the final window, the uninstaller for final removal will ask you to restart your computer. Therefore, we press the button Reload Now.
After the reboot, LiveSafe and WebAdvisor will be completely removed from your computer.
If you have other McAfee products installed, the process for uninstalling them is identical to that shown in the example.
The choice of antivirus software these days is quite large. If you have dealt with the antiviruses you love, then feel free to download the latest version of this antivirus from the developer's website and install it. Now it is preferable to install anti-virus software, which includes, in addition to anti-virus, firewall And proactive defense. The most interesting representatives of complex protection are such programs:
In our example, we will set the complex antivirus package COMODO Internet Security. This antivirus has all kinds of comprehensive protection, and is also free. You can download COMODO Internet Security from www.comodo.com.
After downloading the installation package, run it. In the window that appears, you can enable or disable additional security measures that COMODO antivirus has.
We also press the Forward > button and get into the Yandex Elements settings window.
If you do not want to install "Yandex Elements" on your PC, just turn off all the checkboxes and click Agree. Install, after which the installation of COMODO Internet Security on your computer will begin.
After installation, in addition to the comprehensive anti-virus protection of COMODO Internet Security, Chromodo Browser and COMODO GeekBuddy will also be installed on your computer. Chromodo Browser is a secure browser from COMODO that runs on the WebKit engine. COMODO GeekBuddy is a chat program where you can contact technical support antivirus, solve problems with the program or deal with malware on your PC. If you do not need a secure browser or live chat support, you can disable their installation in the installer.
Let's say you bought new laptop or desktop computer with preinstalled operating Windows system 10 and McAfee antivirus software. In this case, uninstalling McAfee antivirus software with version 10 of the operating system is similar to the example described above. Therefore, when uninstalling on Windows 10, you will hardly notice any difference from uninstalling McAfee antivirus software on the eight.
If you do not need the pre-installed McAfee software, then completely remove it and install the antivirus that you have long been accustomed to. In addition, the process of uninstalling McAfee software will not cause any difficulties even for novice PC users. In addition, do not forget that antivirus protection is very important as it can protect you from viruses and malware.
Most users from time to time notice various programs on their PC that they did not install, including antivirus software - let's look at how to remove McAfee as quickly as possible and without harm to the system.
Found an unknown program that it is not clear where it came from on your computer? There are applications that are downloaded and installed "as a load" to other software. For example, you recently installed a utility or application using an EXE file from unofficial source. Most likely, during such an installation, you will receive not one, but several programs, browsers or extensions.
At the stage of installing new components, the user can cancel additional installation, however, this feature is often hidden and we click Continue, confirming the user agreement.
McAfee is an antivirus that appears on the PC through other programs. Also, it can be found in the OS after installing an unlicensed or custom Windows image.
Fig. 2 - Welcome page in McAfee
In 90% of cases, free McAfee appears on the PC after installation Flash Player, PDF Reader and other products from Adobe. This policy of "imposing" the program on users began in 2015, when antivirus developers faced large losses due to a drop in demand for server antivirus systems. Yes and download full free version program was and is a near impossible task.
As for the functionality of the antivirus, it has a clear interface and allows you to quickly scan your computer. The downside of the program is a small database of threats and limited functionality depending on the version.
Before you start removing McAfee from your PC, decide which version of the defender is installed:
The simpler the flavor of McAfee, the fewer files it stores on your PC. You can view the version in the main window of the program. As a rule, the full name of the product is indicated in the header. Another way to find out the version is to open the Add/Remove Programs window and look for the name of the utility.
Installed on the computer AntiVirus version Plus or Internet Security? Then you can remove the utility using the built-in functions of the OS. If Defender is already installed on the computer, after installing McAfee, serious malfunctions may occur in the first Defender or in operating system. So that the utility does not give an uninstall error and does not apply uninstall protection, we recommend that you start the OS in safe mode:
After booting the system in safe mode, enable the Control Panel and open the Uninstall Programs window. Wait for the list of all applications installed on the PC to load and find McAfee in it. Delete the program.
Fig. 3 - Windows control panel
Without restarting your computer, go to the root folder of drive C and search for folders as prompted by McAfee. Delete all found files and folders that mention the name of the antivirus.
Fig. 4 - search for the remaining files of the utility
Now go to the "This PC" window and right-click on the icon of the main system disk. Select "Properties" and click on "Disk Cleanup". Wait for the analysis of free space and in the window that appears, check the box "Temporary files". Confirm cleaning. Now you can restart your computer. The McAfee files will be deleted.
Fig.5 - cleaning temporary files
Important! If McAfee was installed on a drive other than C, follow the same procedure to find files and delete temporary data on another drive.
Even after uninstalling Macafi, an error may occur when installing other programs and antiviruses. This happens because of the remaining temporary files or entries in the computer's registry. To clean the OS of McAfee traces, use the following methods in turn.
Revo Uninstaller is a popular utility for uninstalling programs and cleaning your computer of "junk" files or processes. Revo knows how to deal with applications that, even after being deleted, are able to restore their work. This method is suitable for more complex versions of Macafi antivirus:
Fig.6 - working with Revo Uninstaller
During the uninstallation process, you will be prompted to choose a working method. We recommend clicking on the "Advanced" item. So you will see all hidden files and their location on the disk.
Fig. 7 - selecting the advanced uninstallation mode
In advanced mode, you can also activate the function of searching for files on other drives and permanently deleting them.
Fig.8 - selection of the object and properties of uninstallation
Click on the "Next" button to have the utility scan the system for traces of unwanted software. As a rule, the search result consists of files with the tmp extension - temporary components that can even resume the software.
Fig. 9 - list of traces of McAfee
You can delete all found files by clicking on "Select all" and "Next". Then confirm the user agreement, enter the captcha. The removal may take several minutes. After the uninstaller has run, you can check the root folders and erase the remaining parts of the program yourself if the utility has not erased them.
Perfect Uninstaller is another utility application for removing unwanted files and OS components. The difference of the previous uninstaller is that Perfect Uninstaller can even remove copies of McAfee that are infected with a virus. Often, such software options simply do not allow the user and other utilities to carry out the removal. "Object access error" and other problems appear.
Perfect Uninstaller allows you to bypass the ban on uninstallation and clean up your PC from programs you don't need. The principle of operation of the uninstaller is similar to the previous version:
Fig.10 - Perfect Uninstaller main window
Notice! After selecting the component to remove, the PU will take a very long time to scan the PC for traces. The search takes place in all folders, other programs, the registry. Please be patient as the process can take up to 30 minutes.
Found files will be deleted in automatic mode. Restart your computer immediately after Perfect Uninstaller finishes.
If you have already uninstalled and want to install any of the Adobe products on your computer, remember how to cancel the antivirus download:
Fig. 11 - Cancellation of loading McAfee
Thematic videos:
How to uninstall McAfee completely - simple instructions
How to Completely Uninstall McAfee® Antivirus Download Dedicated MCPR Utility
