Aight i have a Laptop, and before i bought it from PC WORLD they have said there is no software installed, so i tried installing nortan anti virus, but it tells me there is already a anti virus software on there and i have to uninstall that before i install a new anti virus software, now the thing is i have checked and there is no antivirus software on the system. its a Vista Laptop, went into control panel and add and remove programmes(night be called sutink else) but couldnt find nothing.
is there any software that will go into the harddrive and manually delete it for me
use the utility to remove installation information for programs that were installed by using Windows Installer. Be aware that Windows Installer CleanUp Utility will not remove the actual program from your computer. However, it will remove the installation files so that you can start the installation, upgrade, or uninstall over.
Don't allow the utility to remove everything that is listed, just those installation files related to Norton or to whatever else you wish to deal with.
If you do mistakenly remove installation files of an application you want to keep, there will be no immediate problem, but when you need to update or install add-ons or even uninstall later on, you will no longer find it in your Add/Remove and will have either reinstall before uninstalling/or updating, or will have to perform manual steps to remove.
Otherwise, this little utility form our friends at MS has been a life-saver for many a difficult situation.
As this is a store bought system, in my experience they always pre load certain software, and Norton is nearly always what they load, only other one I saw different was when McAfee was used.
The software is not fully active though, when you first power on you nearly always get greeted by the set up screen from Norton, often this is not a free addition, it is nearly always a time limited trial, and I am pretty sure this is what your finding is with your system.
I always get rid of this as my 1st job in touching a system, it is living off it's past reputation and there are much better free choices than this around, so IMHO ditch Norton, and get either Avira AntiVir or Avast, both are free and far superior, if you wanted a paid solution then NOD32 is the best AFAIK and I'd recommend that more than any other choice, but if you wanted to view an alternate paid option then Kaspersky is also good.
Now if you decide to follow this, I strongly suggest do NOT try and uninstall Norton via ANY means except they're own utility, it is renowned for leaving traces all over the place if you remove it any other way, some may get lucky using ordinary methods, but I have lost so much time in clearing up the remains I only ever uninstall via their utility these days, hope this helps.
Oh Please.
You can't leave us in suspense….
Well, I guess you can.
But think of the consequences!
8210guy thinking that his recommendation to use the Norton Removal Tool worked.
Or Me thinking that the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility worked.
Of course, If 8210guy's solution worked, he'll never let me live it down.
So maybe I don't want to know.
8210guy thinking that his recommendation to use the Norton Removal Tool worked.
Or Me thinking that the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility worked.
Of course, If 8210guy's solution worked, he'll never let me live it down.
So maybe I don't want to know.
Thinking ? Nah that hurts, I definitely don't do that if I can help it LOL. but as if I would rub salt in the wounds, I wouldn't dare, sulphuric acid on the other hand ROFL
✨ Ask AI
AI can make mistakes. Check the cited posts. Archived advice can be out-of-date
Don't include personal information. Questions and selected public posts go to OpenAI. About Ask AI
So maybe I don't want to know. 
