Leftover bits of Norton

My gal has Norton Internet Security on her Presario, and we're thinking about replacing it with NOD or something else. Is it critical to get rid of all the bits and pieces when you uninstall Norton and remove it? Is uninstall enough, or do you have to scrub and bleach it?

Thank you.

 

A good uninstall of Norton seems to be system dependent. But overall, there have been many reports of incomplete uninstalls and Symantec have specific tools now to "completely" remove their products.

If you are using NIS 2004/2005 then advice is here and includes SymNRT; their new removal tool.

For earlier versions of NIS, take a look here.

However, if you only want to remove NAV from NIS, then take a look here.

It is essential before installing some AV products, such as Kaspersky Anti-Virus, to completely remove ALL of the Norton AV debris.

So overall, IMO, try and carry out a COMPLETE uninstall of NIS, or at least the NAV component, before testing out any other AV.

You can also use a good registry cleaner such as RegSupreme after uninstalling Norton, to double-check that most of the debris has been removed.

 

Nice decision, SteelyDon

 

Thanks all.

What we have on this machine are bits of Norton 2002, 2003, and 2005. It has been updated, outdated, uninstalled, screwed up, and serviced by a tech who could not fix the 2002 so he installed 2003. In short, it's a hodgepodge. It now will neither install nor uninstall, because it is half installed. It more or less has 3/4 of NIS 2005, and expired NAV 2003....... but "ABOUT" shows 2002....... what a mess.

SO, do I need a tech? What if I just manually delete everything that smells like Norton and Symantec, and do likewise in the registry? IS that dangerous? (I'm not qualified for reg work, but could clean out the Norton tree if I had to.)

Any suggestions (not that I'm ignoring those way above) would be appreciated.

 

I got curious and took a look at some Norton products a while ago. I was doing some "house cleaning" yesterday and noticed that there were quite a few things left over, including drivers. The removal tool got rid of the leftovers quite easily, and it restored a noticible amount of system performance and stability. I can't recommend this tool enough. (note: this was after using jv16 powertools, which includes the same registry cleaner as RegSupreme, so use both.)

 

Thanks, Notok. WHICH removal tool was it? I think there are a few, for various Nortons.

 

I uninstalled Norton 2005 on a brand new computer with XP SP2 today.
I used add/remove programs from the Windows Control Panel to uninstall,rebooted and ran RegSeeker registry cleaner.
There was a lot of leftover traces labeled "Symantec" and "Norton".

If you do use a registry cleaner make sure that the backup feature is enabled!
Default settings with RegSeeker have that enabled.

If you know what processes Norton uses you could try opening the taskmanager and terminating Norton related processes before trying to uninstall.

 

The 2005 one mentioned by Blackcat, although I'm sure the 2003 one works just as well for the earlier versions.

 

Hi,

Getting rid of Norton was a pain, but it had to be done so this is what finally worked for me:

1) Searched for all folders that had Norton or Symantec in their names and deleted those folders.

2) Ran RegSeeker/Clean the Registry with scan drives for old exe in registry checked

3) I made sure I had a backup of the registry (RegSeeker has a checkbox with the default checked)

4) Deleted all registry entries that were obviously erroneous (I made sure by checking back with the forum here before I actually deleted)

Voila, Norton was gone for good!

Rich

 

Thank you, thank you.

 

umm... would Reg Clean or some other freeware reg cleaner be helpful? Can you tell the thing to clean up 'Norton' or 'Symantec' or other, or does it just have a go and attack the job without the user's direction?

 

Personally I found RegSeeker the most reliable. There isn't anything specific to Norton. It just goes through looking for obsolete entries. It is pretty good at staying on the safe side of things but if you have any questions, you should first ask before deleting. What I did was give the general categories of suggested deletions and asked whether it was OK to delete. It all cases it was, and I cleaned up my directory and any references to Norton with it. I've been using RegSeeker for about a year now with no issues - but again, it is better to ask than go ahead blindly.

Rich

 

What do you think of ERUNT as a registry backup? Just went off & downloaded RegSeeker for I have a Norton's problem coming. Wanted to try out their Anti-Spyware app. which is tucked into NIS 2005. I have 37 days. Have run it twice & it's found nothing so far. mirimim

 

I have never used ERUNT, but I have noticed that others have recommended it. RegSeeker has a built-in backup which I think is reliable and accurate, but if you would like an insurance backup, you could try ERUNT. Others may have other ideas.


Rich

 

Norton's leftovers go beyond registry entries, including things like drivers. As I mentioned previously, you might want to use both a registry cleaner (like RegSeeker or RegSupreme/jv16 PowerTools) along with the removal tool.

 

I think one may be considered a fool to remove ALL symantec entries. I have a number of SHARED symantec entries left on both my boxes. They have never interfered with the use of another AV including KAV. Removing them could remove needed files. I won't do that.

 

Hi mele,

I guess I am a fool. I have scanned my system many times and have not Symantec entries. Despite this, my system runs fine. However, if someone can tell me specifically why I might need a Symantec entry on my system, I will certainly go right to their site and install any or all of their products.

Rich

 

In my experience RegSeeker does NOT remove Norton from the Registry - it just clears up bits of the debris. If you then use Registrar Lite to search for 'Symantec' and 'Norton' you find a whole mass of other stuff which you have to clear out manually - it took me hours to do the job!

 

Hi TopperID,

I have searched my registry many times with many different products, and I have never seen a sign of Norton, but I did go through several steps before using RegSeeker, e.g. running Norton's own "special" uninstall utility, remove all Norton and Symantec related folders, etc. so I cannot say precisely why your experiences are different than mine, but I am sure they are. I do think that RegSeeker should be sufficient to allow KAV to run, but I could be wrong. Did you have a different experiences? That is, KAV was unable to run after running RegSeeker?

Rich

 

Oh no! KAV worked just fine, even after a basic 'uninstall' from Add/Remove progs. It is just that I had a load of junk still left even after using RegSeeker.

But I didn't use Norton's tool, which I thought was for 2003 or earlier, and that could explain the difference!

 

WARNING: Using SymNRT.exe may break your Windows Update facility and it may be very difficult to restore - a reinstall of SP2 from CD worked for me but it doesn't work for everyone.

 

Fortunately, this problem in using symNRT had been picked up previously.

So best advice at present seems to be use Add/Remove, then a good non-Norton registry cleaner!

Norton, however, should give more of a warning with the use of this utility