So you are plugging away on your computer one day and your Norton Antivirus pops up telling you that you need to pay them for a subscription again as yours has expired and you are no longer getting updates. That is fine and dandy if you want to fork over the forty dollars to get it, but if you are like more and more people out there, you have decided that it is time to switch over to a company the provides free antivirus solutions for home users. Now the question is, now do you fully uninstall the Norton Antivirus from your computer?
There is one problem that people encounter when trying to uninstall Norton Antivirus. That program really digs itself deep into your system! There is, however, a process that you can follow to ensure that you get it out of there.
You are going to want to start off by navigating to the Start menu and then selecting Control Panel. Once you have the Control Panel window displayed on your monitor, navigate to the Add/Remove Programs by double clicking on the icon. Once you are presented with the list of programs installed on your computer, find the Norton Antivirus program and then click the button to Remove All. Follow the prompts to complete this and reboot your computer when you are asked to do so.
That was simple! Or was it? Norton is still hiding all over your system and there are a few more things you are going to have to do to get it all.
Start by navigating to the Start menu again and then selecting My Computer and Program Files. Browse through this folder and delete any Symantec folders you find. After you have completed this go to the Common Files folder near the top of the Program files list and delete each Symantec folder that you find in there. Once this has been completed, reboot your computer again.
Once your computer comes back up to the desktop, you will need to go to Start, Search, All Files and Folders and More Advanced Options. In here you will need to check all the search options except for the one to make your search case sensitive. Now, enter Norton in the search field and delete all Norton folders that appear in the search results window. Once again, you will need to reboot your computer. After the reboot has completed, follow the exact same steps, but this time use Symantec in your search.
The final thing that you are going to need to do is to go into your Windows registry and delete the entries in there that are associated to Norton Antivirus. In order to do this go to the Start, Run menu again and type in regedit. Hit the OK button and you will now be presented with the Windows registry of your computer. Expand the HKEY_CURRENT_USER and then expand Software. Go through the list presented until you find Symantec. Right click on it and delete it.
Now you will need to expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and then expand Software. Also delete the Symantec from this list and then reboot your computer.
Once your computer is loaded up again, you will need to go back into the Windows registry and expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and then expand Windows and CurrentVersion. In this list delete all of the Symantec entries that you see and then reboot your computer one last time. This should have removed all traces of Norton Antivirus from your system.
If you are a person that is not quite comfortable with completing such a procedure, you can also find a Norton Removal Tool that is available for download from the Symantec website. This tool can remove Norton 2006, 2005, 2004 and 2003 products from your computer. You will need to make sure that you are using the Internet Explorer browser on your computer however as the tool will not run in other Internet browsers.
In order to do this you need to go here. Once you are on this webpage, expand the Uninstall Norton AntiVirus using the SymNRT removal utility and then click on the Run It Now button. Be sure that when you get any prompts you select Run, Yes, OK or Next. If your Internet browser has a little yellow bar at the top of it, be sure that you click on it and select Install ActiveX control. During the uninstall process, your computer may be rebooted more than once and you may be asked to repeat some steps after each reboot. Just keep going and you will have uninstalled Norton Antivirus from your computer in no time!
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