Removing McAfee

Greets Geeks,

I use McAfee VirusScan frequently on my clients computers. Once in a while I install McAfee only to find out that somebody has installed and registered a similar McAfee product on that same machine previously, then removed it.

The problem is, it won't let me re-register the brand new product. It says something to the effect of "you must use the information you used when your registered this product" or something to that effect. Or it will go to the McAfee update page and give me a message of "unauthorized".

The fact is, I am installing a brand new, fresh copy of VirusScan and want to re-register, perhaps with a different email address/password. But I CAN'T. I know that this is due to McAfee somehow picking up fragments of the original product on the computer but I dont' know where. I have searched the HD for "virusscan", "mcafee" etc and did the same thing in the registry. But I'm missing something. I've been down this road before but can never pinpoint the one little piece that gives me a "fresh start".

It really irks me that after 20+ years of Windows/Windows products, these idiots still can't create an uninstall routine that actually uninstalls their products. Norton even has "special" removal tools to uninstall their own garbage. Add/Remove should do everything you need it to do if the uninstall routine is properly written.

 

Have you tried this route?
http://ts.mcafeehelp.com/faq.asp?frames=1&docid=68717&CategoryId=245&chat=

Banacek

 

I almost went crazy trying to completely get rid of Macafee. What finally worked for me was downloading a free trial version which removed all the old traces of my registered version, then the free trial easily uninstalled itself.