need help removing norton antivirus

[Thor Von Clemson]

I need help removing norton antivirus. I have removed all the files I can find relating to norton and everything else I could think of. When I go to uninstall the program through the control panel, it says "fatal error during installation" and won't let me remove it. I have tried doing it in safe mode and that did not work. The program is not on my startup registry or currently running in any way, shape, or form that I know of so I am stuck... any advice?

[charvelguy]

What is your OS? you should have removed it through Wizard..did you remove items independently of this?

[St.James]

Sounds like you deleted stuff related to the program that the uninstall wizard can't find and needs to uninstall it.

You could try installing it again, then uninstall it properly through "add/remove programs" in the control panel.

[Thor Von Clemson]

Tom- My OS is windows xp 2002 home. The computer I am working on is the one at my parent's house. To the best of my knowledge what happened was someone manually removed the files but never actually uninstalled the program. My dad is having problems with his current antivirus (AVG) and I wanted to work on it. I first tried to uninstall Norton through the control panel and I got the fatal error message. I did a search and found three files related to Norton remaining on the computer. I erased those thinking maybe one was bad or something and I got the same message.

St James- I think that is what happened. The version I am trying to remove is Norton 2002. I'll see if there is anyway I can re-install it but I can not find any Norton related files anywhere. Does it make a difference if I install a newer version of Norton and uninstall it?

[charvelguy]

It sounds like some crucial shared registry .dll or other files may have been removed. I would try the SFC.. system file checker. AVG may have a record of any changed files as well.
I would consider a restore to a previous point before the removal attempt was done 'if you can'. (the restore point may now be gone) You may lose some recent programs if they were added post restore point but..hopefully this would correct the problem..its an option instead of reinstalling Norton.

I would get a 2nd or 3rd opinion on that... but short of reinstall of XP, you could attempt to fix it.

[toejam]

Yeah, I'd try to do a restore, then use CCleaner to fix your registry and remove all the crap left behind. You should even be able to remove Norton through the Tools menus in CCleaner.

www.ccleaner.com

[axeman81]

I have the answer, don't mess with restore or the registry cleaner, symantec provides their own Symantec Removal Tool for that stuff, and it works perfect.

Here is the link:

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039?Open&docid=2005010612474906&nsf=nav.nsf&view=0

[axeman81]

also, you should never manually remove files, and THEN attempt to uninstall because that will always leave you with an error message.

that worked fine with DOS but not in the modern OS'es.

[Newc]

HEY! We're brothers! Which room you been hiding in, and where's my RUSH CD?

Seriously, my dad used to do the same thing - move or delete large files from his C drive to free up space, then come ask me what's wrong with it

Finally I got him a separate drive for programs only, and told him that he couldn't install anything - I had to do it

Saved me a ton of headaches until he finally learned why I did it that way, and now the only problems he has are hardware-related (faulty manufacture).

[Thor Von Clemson]

Your Rush CD... Well lets just say things were said, mistakes were made, and lets just be glad we're all still alive..

Next time I go over there I will check things out. The pc was going very slow and I was worried it was horribly infected with all kinds of crap. I moved out around 3 months ago and with my 14 year old sister constantly using it and my dad using it for work, I knew something needed to be done.

Turns out everything is pretty clean, there is just a bunch of crap that he did not need (including my old line 6 software ). AVG seems to be working well and the Norton program does not seem to affect anything. It was the last program I was looking to remove and everything else seemed to be working fine.

I removed some programs he never used via the control panel add/remove programs, cleared out the cookies and temporary internet files as well as a lot of pictures, music, and videos from my brother and I left on there when we moved out.

[wilkinsi]

1. attempt usual ininstall from desktop. if not - 2. uninstall from control panel/add or remove programs. still being a shitbag? - 3. backup all important files you wanna keep and re-format the frikkin drive. that norton antivirus may as well BE a virus. complete pain in the ass.