How to remove McAfee products?

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Sometimes after removal of McAfee anti-virus software with the standard means and the computer restart some records may still remain in the system registry and prevent Kaspersky PURE / Kaspersky PURE R2 from installation.

That is why it is so important to fully uninstall McAfee software before installation of Kaspersky PURE / Kaspersky PURE R2.

Before the files are copied onto a hard disk the Setup Wizard scans the disk for software incompatible with Kaspersky Lab applications. Records in the system registry are recognized by the Setup Wizard as fully installed McAfee software, even though the product was removed and is no longer installed on the PC. As a result Kaspersky PURE Setup Wizard asks to delete the detected incompatible software manually and terminates the installation process.

In order to fully uninstall McAfee software and its records from the system registry, please follow the recommendations below:

How to remove McAfee products using standard Microsoft Windows tools?

• in the bottom left corner click the Start button
• perform the following actions:
• for Windows XP:
• select the Control Panel item

• in the Control Panel window click Add or Remove programs

• for Windows Vista and Windows 7:
• select the Control Panel item

• in the Control Panel window click Programs

• in the Programs window select Programs and components

• in the list of programs select the McAfee anti-virus
• perform the following actions:
• for Windows XP 
• click the button Change/Remove (if you are offered to remove some common files click the button Yes, for all) 
• for Windows Vista and Windows 7
• double-click the application name
• in the Programs and components window click the Yes button

Install Kaspersky PURE / Kaspersky PURE R2 once again.

As a result McAfee anti-virus will be removed from your computer. If McAfee anti-virus has been successfully removed from your computer you do not need to perform the following steps. If an error message informs that McAfee anti-virus removal was unsuccessful you will have to delete McAfee anti-virus manually.

McAfee special utilities to remove McAfee products

If removal of McAfee anti-virus was not successful, please follow the recommendations below to fully remove the product from your computer

Please, follow the recommendations below to remove McAfee anti-virus from your computer:

• download and save on your desktop a special tool to remove McAfee anti-virus: VSCleanupTool.exe (VSCLEANEUPTOOL (C) McAfee, Inc)
• double-click the file VSCleanupTool.exe to run it
• the removal tool will define the time necessary for removal and will show this information in the McAfee Clean Up Tool window (the removal will approximately take 1 minute according to the system time shown in the bottom right-corner of the screen)
• ten additional icons will appear on your desktop during the removal process. Nine icons will be automatically deleted from your desktop after successful removal of McAfee anti-virus and computer reboot. The file mccleanup.log will however remain on your desktop even after the computer reboot.
• you can remove the file mccleanup.log after successful removal of McAfee anti-virus and computer reboot
• once the removal process of McAfee anti-virus is over the following message will appear in the command line: The machine must reboot to complete the uninstallation. Reboot now?[y/n] 
• enter “Y” from the keyboard, to reboot the computer now and to finish the uninstallation of McAfee anti-virus

 

If after all performed actions the records in the system registry were not deleted and the Setup Wizard asks to remove incompatible software manually, use a special tool to remove McAfee products:

• download the utility MCPR.exe (MCPR (C) McAfee, Inc)
• double-click the file MCPR.exe to run it
• once the process of deleting McAfee products is over (the removal process may take a minute), the McAfee Cleanup window appears.
• click Yes to reboot your computer and to finish the removal process of McAfee products



Install Kaspersky PURE / Kaspersky PURE R2 once again.

If all remains of your previous anti-virus software were removed, or you have not had any anti-virus software installed on your computer, but you cannot install Kaspersky PURE / Kaspersky PURE R2, then create a request to Kaspersky Lab Technical Support via the My Kaspersky Account service. Attach to your request a report created using Getsysteminfo.

In the request, do not forget to describe the problem and actions which are required to be performed to reproduce the problem in all details.

 

 

Useful references

How to remove third-party software: uninstallation tools