Uninstalling Symantec Anti-Virus (Microsoft Windows)
If you are a faculty or staff member and your computer is supported by technical support staff, please contact your support staff prior to performing this procedure.
Uninstalling Symantec AntiVirus from your computer
Symantec has at least two components installed on your computer, depending on which product you installed. You will repeat this process for each component. It is important to uninstall Symantec completely, or it may interfere with your network connections once you install another anti-virus product.
Close all open programs. You will have to restart your computer once this process is complete.
Open the Control Panel by selecting Start and then Control Panel.
Select the Uninstall a program option from the Programs group.
One at a time, select each specific Symantec component you have installed and click Uninstall or Uninstall/Change:
LiveUpdate 3.0 (Symantec Corporation)
Symantec Endpoint Protection Client
Symantec AntiVirus
You may receive a warning message that an unidentified program wants to access your computer. Click Allow. You may also receive warning messages from Vista that there are problems with your computer security as different Symantec programs are removed. This will be resolved once you install Forefront.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you have removed all the Symantec components. When you uninstall LiveUpdate, Windows will ask to for permission to proceed. Click Continue. Then click Yes when Windows asks if you want to remove LiveUpdate.
Click OK if Windows informs you that the component has been successfully removed.
Close the Control Panel.
Go to the Symantec Web site and download their removal tool. Although the page is titled "Uninstalling your Norton products on Windows Vista," the page provides options for many Windows operating system versions.
Go to step 3 and select the product for your operating system. Save the NortonRemovalTool.exe file to your downloads folder.
Open your Downloads folder and double-click the NortonRemovalTool.exe file to open it. Click Allow.
The tool displays a list of files/programs that it will remove. You will have to restart your computer after the process is complete. Click Next.
Select the "I accept the license agreement" option and click Next.
Enter the text as prompted in the security check and click Next twice. You may see a message from the Windows Security Center that your computer might not be protected because Symantec is no longer installed. This message will go away after Forefront Client Security is installed.
Click Restart when prompted.
Updating the Firewall
If you uninstalled the Symantec Firewall, you should enable the Windows XP firewall.
Last updated September 14, 2011 @ 11:09 am
