Another friend needs help RE: Norton, McAfee

I have another friend who needs some help with her system. Unfortunately, she is 4 hours away, and does not remember all details of the events, so the information that I am able to provide may be both sparse and speculative.

She bought a Gateway last October. I THINK it had McAfee Internet Security installed as a 30 trial (does Gateway do this too?).

She had the Geek Squad come to her home and set up the new machine for her. It seems that they installed Norton Internet Security for her at this time (she says that it expires in Sept). I am assuming that they removed McAfee Antivirus before they installed Norton.

This June, she was getting the BSOD, so she called Gateway, but she says they were of little help to her, so she had the Geek Squad come and help her again. They "restored" her system for her. I do not know whether they did a System Restore or a complete Factory Restore. She says that everything was still there except her emails and addresses.

She keeps getting warnings from McAfee that the trail has ended. After asking her some questions, I am under the impression that only the Security Center and AntiSpyware portion of McAfee is still installed. I had her go into Add/Remove and look for any McAfee entries. She says that Security Center and AntiSpyware are all that are listed.

I then asked her to look in Task Manager for any McAfee processes. I knew that mcshield.exe, mcvsescn.exe, and mcvsrte.exe were related to the Antivirus portion. I then asked her to report to me any processes that started with "mc". She said that: mcagent.exe, mcupdmgr.exe, McTskshd.exe, Mcdetect.exe, and mcupdui.exe where still running.

After researching these processes, it appears to me that they are all related to Security Center (updating, UI, etc).

I have suggested to her that she just uninstall any McAfee entries through Add/Remove unless she intends to renew her McAfee subscription. (which she does not)

Here are my concerns:

1. I know how finicky AV programs can be, esp Norton and McAfee. Is there any reason to think that something may go afoul while she in uninstalling McAfee? I really wish that the Geek Squad person would have removed ALL McAfee products before installing Norton. Doesn't that make more sense?

2. I also know that having multiple AV programs installed can cause major conflicts. Does this ring true when ANY portion of multiple security suites are simultaneously installed? (Security Centers, for example) It seems to me that each company wants to be "the one" on your machine, but as long as there is only ONE AV program, is everything OK?

3. Are there any other processes that she should look out for that may cause conflicts?

4. This is a bit off topic, but she also uses Incredimail, which I am very unfamiliar with. Do AV programs (in this case Norton) protect you from email viruses when using Incredimail?


Thanks

PK

 

Oh, she will more than likely just keep Norton. That is the easiest way. If it were me (and probably 80% of the readers here), I would dump Norton, but there is no way she could handle the problems that could arise when removing Norton.

PK

 

Though, I'm sure, with your help, and a wee bit of our help, you can rid her of norton.