How to fully uninstall Symantec - or fix it (Corporate edition)

Hi! Happy Holidays everyone - Happ New Year! I hope everyone is having a warm and healthy holiday break. I'm on my Dad's Windows XP computer. He has Symantec. When I open from the tray it it says in the bottom of the window: "Virus definition file" Version: 10/18/2010 rev2 [Live Update button] When I click the live update button next to the version, it does something but the Version of the virus definition file is stil 10/18/2010 His version is AntiVirus Corporate Edition Parent Server: (nothing) Group: (nothing) Quarantine: 0 items Program versions: Program: 8.1.0.825 Scan engine: 4.2.0.7 Virus definition file Version: 10/18/2010 rev.2 This is a personal computer, so I don't know why the corporate edition is installed here. My father says someone else installed it for him a few years ago. How do I either remove Symantec completely (I already downloaded Avira AntiVir) or fix what he has? Thank you! Linda

Go to Norton's site and download then run Norton Removal Tool that is appropriate for your version of Norton's you had. Let us know if it works for you.

I've found that RevoUninstaller set at the max. level will uninstall every trace of any anti-virus / firewall / program guard app. (all I've tried it on anyway) as long as the apps. are disabled in msconfig first!

Cheers,
Lee

Using Revo on Norton with Windows XP MCE can damage Media Center. I ran into this last week at the shop. I did a factory restore then used Revo to get rid of Norton and other stuff. After that Media Center did not work correctly.

I repeated the process again only this time I only uninstalled Norton and had the same problem.

I did it one more time but this time I used the Norton Removal Tool and Media Center continued to work correctly.

Fluke or specific hardware? I don't know but Caveat Emptor

I'm glad you let me know that Rich. I've never tried Revo on Nortons, but quite a few others so I assumed it would do the job. I used to use another method on Nortons, but I can't mention the program here. Since then I haven't had the opportunity to try Revo on Nortons. Thanks for the heads-up Cheers, Lee

Well … I repeated the process again and this time I used Norton Removal Tool. Same problem, Media Center no longer worked, so it looks like Revo is not the culprit after all. I restore it one more time and this time I left Norton installed but disabled all Startup items and Service tasks. So far so good. I've got SP3 and IE7 installed and Media Center is still working. I'll do the updates next and see what happens. It appears that uninstalling Norton breaks Media Center.

Well … I repeated the process again and this time I used Norton Removal Tool. Same problem, Media Center no longer worked, so it looks like Revo is not the culprit after all.

I restore it one more time and this time I left Norton installed but disabled all Startup items and Service tasks. So far so good. I've got SP3 and IE7 installed and Media Center is still working. I'll do the updates next and see what happens. It appears that uninstalling Norton breaks Media Center.

Hi - Thanks for you responses Lee and Rich.

Rich - do you still have Norton installed as the AV on the XP MCE system? Did you upgrade the license so you can continue using Norton as the AV, or do you still plan on replacing Norton?

thanks.

I'm finally back at my Dad's so I am going to try to uninstall Norton. I think maybe I should do an image of his disk first, since you guys have described these problems.

I do think he has some sort of Outlook email virus though, so the disk image will likely contain that virus, whatever it is. Someone sent him an email which keeps replicating itself in his subfolder. All the mail from this friend of his was being sent to its own folder. There's a bunch of the same message in this folder. My Dad deleted all the other messages from this friend from the folder, and even renamed the Outlook folder, creating a new one with the old name.

My Dad's AV ran out, so the first thing I wanted to do was install an AV program (like AntiVir). Maybe I should be posting in the Malware forum, instead of here? Is that okay?

I don't use Outlook, and only rarely use Thunderbird. (I do most email on webclients like gmail, yahoo, etc) So digging worms or viruses out of mail folders isn't something I've ever had to deal with. I'm tempted to use Outlook to delete the renamed folder which has the self-replicating email message, but I don't know if that would cause more harm than good, so I'm not doing that just yet.

He's got 32 GB used on his hard drive. Looks like a disk image using clonezilla might take a while…

Let me know what you think. In the meantime, I'm starting an image and I'll post this self-replicating e-mail question to the malware forum.
Thanks!

I've started a new thread in the Malware forum at
http://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?showtopic=121853

thanks!

Linda, I disabled Norton/Symantec, both Startup and Services and just left all the files anf registry entries alone. I then installed Microsoft Security Essentials. Media Center is still working fine.

Linda, I disabled Norton/Symantec, both Startup and Services and just left all the files anf registry entries alone. I then installed Microsoft Security Essentials. Media Center is still working fine.

Thanks Rich. Happy New Year :-) !!

Btw, my father's computer isn't MCE.

I've posted a thread on the malware board because there is actually malware via Outlook.