You may decide to uninstall McAfee Antivirus software in case you find its performance sluggish or if you simply wish to change to different antivirus software. Although all Window PCs come with an inbuilt feature that allows users to uninstall the programs or applications present on the system, at times the normal uninstallation procedure fails to completely remove programs, such as McAfee Antivirus.
In this article we will discuss the steps you can follow to ensure complete removal of McAfee antivirus from your system
Uninstall using Add or Remove Program Utility:
Follow the steps given below to perform McAfee Antivirus uninstall, using the normal uninstallation process:
- Go to Start menu, select Control Panel to open the corresponding window.
- Here, double-click on Add or Remove Programs option.
- Browse through the list of programs displayed and select McAfee Antivirus.
- Now, click Remove button and press OK.
- Restart the system after the uninstallation process is complete.
Perform automatic removal using McAfee Removal (MCPR) Tool
In case you are unable to uninstall McAfee Antivirus using the Add or Remove Programs utility, you can take the help of McAfee Removal Tool. This tool automatically uninstalls McAfee Antivirus from your PC. The automatic removal process also allows you to remove other McAfee products, such as McAfee Security Center, VirusScan, Personal Firewall Plus, Privacy Service, SpamKiller, McAfee Wireless Network Security, SiteAdvisor, Data Backup, Network Manager, and Easy Network.
Note: The MCPR tool works on Window XP Home, Windows XP Professional, and Windows Vista. You cannot use this tool to remove McAfee products on Windows 98 and Windows ME computers.
Perform the following steps to remove McAfee Anitivirus using MCPR tool:
- First, download the MCPR removal tool.
- Now, in the file dialog box that opens, click Save and save the tool on your desktop.
- Next, close all the McAfee applications running on your system and double-click MCPR.exe to run the removal tool (Windows Vista users need to right click on MCPR.exe and select Run as Administrator option)
- Reboot your system.
Note: After you uninstall any application from your system, it is always advisable to run a registry scan to ensure there are no left over entries or keys related to the program you have just removed. You can take help of an advanced registry cleaner, such as RegGenie to perform registry scans and remove orphaned entries of the program you have uninstalled.
Another useful method to get rid of undesired and stubborn applications is to use an efficient third-party program uninstaller tool, such as Perfect Uninstaller. This tool is designed to thoroughly scan your entire PC for any information related to the program you are trying to remove and get rid of it to ensure complete program removal.