Service Alerts (1 New)

Anti-Virus Software

Uninstalling Symantec and installing Forefront Client Security on personal or unmanaged computers

Operating System: Windows Vista and 7

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.

Preparation

Data Backup (Optional)

We recommend that you back up your system and/or any important content stored on your system prior to performing this procedure. See the Data Backup topic for more information about backing up your important data.

Set up for Microsoft Update

This procedure ensures that your computer is set up to find any updates for Forefront.

  1. From the Start menu, select All Programs, then select Windows Update.
  2. For the setting, "You receive updates," there are two options:
    • If it says "For Windows and other products from Microsoft Update," you are already set up to use Microsoft Update. Move onto the steps to uninstall Symantec.
    • If it says "For Windows only, click the "Get updates for more products" option and continue with step 4.
      Get update for more products button in Vista
  3. Windows opens Internet Explorer to the Microsoft Updates site. Select the "I accept the Terms of Use" option and click Install. Click Continue.
  4. Windows Update checks for updates. Close the screen. Forefront will look for updates when it is installed.

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.

  1. Close all open programs. You will have to restart your computer once this process is complete.
  2. Open the Control Panel by selecting Start and then Control Panel.
  3. Select the Uninstall a program option from the Programs group.
  4. 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
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Click OK if Windows informs you that the component has been successfully removed.
  8. Close the Control Panel.
  9. 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.
  10. Go to step 3 and select the product for your operating system. Save the Norton_Removal_Tool.exe file to your downloads folder.
  11. Open your Downloads folder and double-click the Norton_Removal_Tool.exe file to open it. Click Allow.
  12. 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.
  13. Select the “I accept the license agreement” option and click Next.
  14. 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.
  15. Click Restart when prompted.

Installing and Configuring Forefront Client Security

  1. Download Forefront Client Security from BevoWare.
  2. Open your Downloads folder and double-click the microsoft_forefront_1.5.1972.0_ut.exe file. Click Allow to run the program, then click Install.
  3. Click Finish. While Forefront connects to the Internet to see if updates are available, the Microsoft Forefront Security icon in the system tray displays a warning Microsoft Forefront Client Security icon in system tray. The update process may take a couple of minutes to complete. When all updates to the program and the virus definition files have been installed, the Forefront system tray icon changes to reflect that it is up-to-date. Forefront icon up-to-date
  4. Open the Tools menu and click Options.
  5. Select the following options:
    • Automatically scan my computer
    • Check for updated definitions before scanning
    • Apply default actions to items detected during a scan
  6. Click Save.

If you experience any trouble with this procedure, please check the Errors page. You can also contact the ITS Help Desk for support.

Updating the Firewall

If you uninstalled the Symantec Firewall, you should enable the Windows Vista firewall.