Removing Norton IS

I am thinking about giving Avast free a trial. I am using Norton, and wonder if I might need a removal tool or if there is one?
Thanks,
Jerry

 

here yu go sir. Avast Free is better then the majority of paid products.

http://us.norton.com/support/kb/web...b&selected_nav=&pvid=&docurl=20080828154508EN

 

Why not stay with Norton until your subscription runs out? Avast Free will still be there for you.

 

go for it Jerr, just leave Avira on the main.

 

I think he's catching the disease...the next thing you know he will be in AV Rehab! But he can get good counseling right here!

 

Trjam has set the example.
Norton has over 200 days left.

Regards,
Jerry

 

trjam is to Av's what Keith Richards is to ... well you know.

 

I wonder if I want to know who Keith Richards is?
Jerry

 

Lets just say he likes to try things.

 

Bad stupid terrible things IMO

 

Too bad the Norton Removal Tool doesn't remove Norton. It leaves 5-7 hidden drivers behind in the Device Manager.

Start menu -> Control panel -> System -> Advanced system settings -> Environment varibles.

In the bottom window, click New and enter devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices for Variable name and 1 for Variable number.

Your device manager will now show hidden drivers.

Go to Device manager, and in the View menu, select Show hidden devices.

An entry named Non-Plug and Play Drives will appear. Even after running the normal Norton uninstaller and the Norton Removal Tool, there will be a number of Symantec entries left in here, with the corresponding registry items in the registry. Right-clicking on these entries and uninstalling them that way gets rid of them, and the corresponding Legacy keys, too.

Nortons uninstaller, including the Removal Tool, is really poor, and leaves a ton of crap behind. Pity - an otherwise excellent product.

 

Usually the standard uninstall completes cleanly, but if it doesn't you can use the Norton Removal Tool. As someone noted apparently even he NRT does not remove every last bit, however those last bits will not prevent you from installing Avast or cause other problems AFAICT. If you're considering reinstalling Norton Internet Security you might want to use only the standard uninstall and choose the option that saves your settings.

 

Thanks for the help. In the past I have uninstalled Norton from a few computers using only the control panel. I never noticed any problems after the removal, but I want to have the removal tool available.
I am still undecided as NIS has run so well for over a year. I generally go with the "Let sleeping dogs lie" thinking.

I'm waiting 'till I am bored.
I don't seem to get bored as often as a good friend of mine.

Regards,
Jerry

 

Revo uninstaller on advanced should do the trick.

 

there's no hidden drivers on my pc, only for network card. I had nis installed and didn't use the removal tool.
It's the first place I look then services and registry. I was surprised how clean it un installed. Eset leaves 2 hidden drivers behind using windows add remove.

 

There has to be hidden drivers left, unless you removed them manually. They are not removed by any Norton uninstaller. Not that you have to enable devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices for Variable name and 1 for Variable number or they won't show up in hidden drivers either, because they are not in use. But they are there.

 

I don't doubt what you're saying. My question is do the hidden drivers have any effect on the system? Obviously if they do it's a problem and if they don't it isn't in terms of function. What is the concern?

 

ah! no only current drivers are viewed.
if they ain't present they aint doin anything
yeah, they're there with 100's of other utilities and monitoring programs installed and removed, surely they're just dead files and all they use is a miniscule fragment of hard drive.

 

most av's do not totally uninstall clean i would go as far as to say almost all do not. some more so than others and honestly norton is one of the better ones compared to some i have seen. but this is the exact reason i make backups frequently. so when i want to try a new av or something similar and i dont want to do it in a vm setting i can simply restore to before i installed it and use the new av and then i can browse the image and just copy stuff back. i always make a image of a totally fresh windows install and keep that and also one right before and after i install any av or otherwise intrusive type of program (which honestly i consider a av to be in some regards installing things like services and low level drivers and tons of reg keys etc.. ) this way its quick clean and easy to swap out av's whenever i feel like it and i dont ever hav to worry about fully removing them.

 

most of these "uninstallers" for specific vendors products leave "crap" behind so this criticism cannot just be aimed at Norton:-Install Kis for example,uninstall then run their removal tool,then search your registry!On my system it not only left "crap" behind it screwed up my office install due to the way it integrated with outlook!

 

oh boy av rehab..

 

Yeah, I know. I'd say Norton is in the middle of the pack in this regard. There are worse, like AVG, and better, like Avira, which is close to perfect.

 

Symantec makes an excellent uninstall Utility for Endpoint Security (God knows I've had to use it enough). It's called Cleanwipe- it even has a build in Registry scanner that will remove all entries.

 

The Norton uninstall program is probably the best program they ever developed.

 

Hello,


There is no AV that does not leave traces behind. None.

I have some old computers at home which I use exclusively to test software and I can tell you for sure that even using the more advanced available tools for AV removal [and... it applies to Firewalls too], there will always be something left.

The thing is the AVs and FWs hook so deep onto Windows Kernel that it's nearly impossible to have them removed without leaving traces behind.

And...sometimes, those hidden drivers on the device manager conflict and even give you BSOD when you try to install other security applications.

What I do to avoid this is: when I install Windows for the first time on a clean HDD, I just install Windows + computer drivers + Windows patches and SP and my other applications [ e.g.: MS Office, etc.]. Then, I make a BACKUP IMAGE of my PRISTINE Windows installation at that point. NO, anti-virus, not firewalls at this point.

Later on, I then install the AV and FW of choice. If any of these two installations ruin my system very badly I don't bother uninstalling them, I just re-load my pristine Windows installation and start over with another AV and/or FW.



Hope this helps.




Carlos