I was trying to install AVG antivirus the other day and it complained that there was already another antivirus installed in my system. I was shocked because I was confident that I’ve uninstalled all previous antivirus software prior to installing AVG. It seems that there was an unclean antivirus uninstallation happening before. Since I needed to install various antivirus/security suite for my past reviews, I wasn’t sure which antivirus/security suite was still in my system.
I then found a thread in Microsoft Answer’s forum that listed all antivirus/security suite with their removal tools to remove the package completely.
How to remove previous antivirus software completely from your system
Download these tools specific for the software package and run them:
- Alwil Avast
http://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility - AVG
http://www.avg.com/us-en/download-tools - Kaspersky
http://support.kasperskyamericas.com/knowledge-base-article/1464 - Avira
http://dlpro.antivir.com/down/windows/registrycleaner_en.zip - BitDefender
http://www.bitdefender.com/KB333-en–How-to-uninstall-BitDefender.html - F Security
http://support.f-secure.com/enu/corporate/downloads/removeav.shtml - Norton/Symantec
http://service1.symantec.com/support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039?OpenDocument&seg=hm&lg=en&ct=u - McAfee
http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?id=TS100507 - TrendMicro:
http://esupport.trendmicro.com/Pages/How-do-I-remove-old-or-new-versions-of-Trend-Micro-products-in-my-comp.aspx - Windows Live OneCare
http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/c/b/4cb845e7-1076-437b-852a-7842a8ab13c8/OneCareCleanUp.exe - Zone Alarm
http://download.zonealarm.com/bin/free/support/cpes_clean.exe - ESET (NOD32)
http://kb.eset.com/esetkb/index?page=content&id=SOLN2289
At the end, I downloaded and ran the cleanup tools for Avast, Kaspersky, BitDefender, and NOD32. Found that I actually had a process called EKRN.exe caused by unclean uninstallation of the ESET Smart Security that I reviewed months earlier. After I ran the ESET Smart Security removal tool, AVG could be installed and somehow I felt my computer was running quicker than before.
So if your system has become sluggish, it might be coming from an unclean antivirus/security software uninstallation. Try running one of these tools to see if it helps!
Source of list: Microsoft Answers thread
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