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10 Elder
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45.2K Posts
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November 20th, 2020 17:00
Removing McAfee
My 1-year Dell-bundled subscription to McAfee just ended and I won't renew.
I used McAfee's own MCPR.exe to uninstall it and that seemed to work. But there are still 69 items with "McAfee" or "LiveSafe" in their name on my drive. McAfee is even listed as icon that can be displayed in the notification area of taskbar. So Win 10 thinks it's still there, even though the icon doesn't actually appear when I give it permission to appear on the taskbar.
If I try to delete these items there's an error saying I need permission from System. I tried changing permissions for those folders and files since I'm already using an account with Administrator privileges, but that didn't work either
Has anybody successfully removed all this leftover junk?
joe53
2 Intern
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5.8K Posts
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November 22nd, 2020 15:00
Ron:
Unfortunately I can't help you, as I have not installed McAfee for years - not even in recent years when Dell forced me to accept McAfee as a default AV included in the purchase price.
My practice in recent years was to delete all McAfee files including the installer, and never activating/installing this AV. I made this job #1 at first bootup, along with deleting all the other preinstalled junk. Invariably this left no McAfee files behind.
Psychologically, folks find it hard to delete a commercial AV they perceive they have paid for (or received for "free") but in the case of McAfee I strongly suggest it never be activated. Multiple independent tests at reputable websites have consistently found it does not provide superior protection to the free AVs (such as Avast, Microsoft Windows Defender, and Panda Free AV) and usually scores below the Free AVs. Your difficulties removing residual McAfee files do not surprise me.
I post all this for the benefit of members purchasing new computers, in the "ounce of prevention" category.
joe53
2 Intern
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5.8K Posts
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November 22nd, 2020 16:00
I suppose you found this at McAfee's website:
https://service.mcafee.com/webcenter/portal/oracle/webcenter/page/scopedMD/s55728c97_466d_4ddb_952d_05484ea932c6/Page29.jspx?wc.contextURL=%2Fspaces%2Fcp&locale=en-US&articleId=TS101331&_afrLoop=534223970074493&leftWidth=0%25&showFooter=false&showHeader=false&rightWidth=0%25¢erWidth=100%25#!%40%40%3FshowFooter%3Dfalse%26locale%3Den-US%26_afrLoop%3D534223970074493%26articleId%3DTS101331%26leftWidth%3D0%2525%26showHeader%3Dfalse%26wc.contextURL%3D%252Fspaces%252Fcp%26rightWidth%3D0%2525%26centerWidth%3D100%2525%26_adf.ctrl-state%3Dcs1creva8_9
RoHe
10 Elder
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45.2K Posts
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November 22nd, 2020 16:00
@joe53 I kept McAfee installed/activated while I checked out my new hardware and made sure everything worked correctly before I started adding/removing software and making major settings changes.
Somehow a whole year slipped by and I hadn't done anything about McAfee until I got a popup saying it was about to expire. So that's when I ran their MCPR tool, expecting it to clean out ALL their junk.
So now I have at least 69 leftovers, not counting anything that might not say McAfee or LiveSafe in the file name, so there probably is even more garbage on the drive.
I switched to Windows Defender, so the PC is still protected, but it would be nice to get rid of the unnecessary junk, but I'm not ready to do a clean install of Win 10 etc.
RoHe
10 Elder
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45.2K Posts
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November 22nd, 2020 17:00
@joe53 Yes, I read that, but guess I missed the " It is not designed to clean up 100% of components" part, the first time.
So unless I can find a way to safely change permissions on those leftover files, I'm stuck with them unless/until I do a clean install.