Uninstalling Norton Antivirus

1938 Views 13 Replies 7 Participants Last post by kyle v, Sep 5, 2005

NKfloofiepoof

Discussion Starter · Aug 30, 2005

I hope this is the right forum for this.

I fairly recently downloaded and installed Norton Antivirus, and I hate it. It makes my computer take forever to boot up, and I hate how un-user friendly it is. I want to uninstall and get rid of it, but everyone I know who has had Norton in the past has had to reformat their hard drive in order to uninstall it because of how clingy Norton is to the registry, and this always happens when they attempt to uninstall. I have absolutely no method to back up the 20 gigs of music, games, stories, and art on my computer - I can't afford a second hard drive, much less enough burning CDs or 1-gig flash drives to back it all up, so I'm terrified of attempting it. There's no way for me to replace 80% of the things on my computer, especially since I'm on dial up and can't download 20 gigs of files anyway.

I have a backup antivirus program I'm more than willing to renew as soon as I can get Norton off my computer, but like I said, after hearing my friends' horror stories of uninstalling it (5 people, mind you), I'm terrified of attempting it. Is there any way I can get it off my computer without having to reformat and lose everything?

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elf

· #2 · Aug 30, 2005 (Edited)

Well, first let me say this, you need to backup. Hard drives have a bad habit of failing right when you really don't want them to. I've had 2 die on me at the most inopportune times and lost many priceless files (nothing important, just sentimental things).

Second, uninstalling norton should be as easy as going to your control panel > add/remove programs > and uninstalling it through there. However, if for some reason that does not work Norton provides instructions on removing itself HERE.

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hopper

· #3 · Aug 30, 2005

Good advice from elf. I've removed it from dozens of computers with little or no problems. People sure don't like it around here, do they? I'm in the club, I think it is ridiculously intusive. Love it or hate it, at least Symantec provides excellent documentation, such as the link that elf provided. It's my go-to website for virus removal as well. I just don't want their software on my machine.

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keymaker

· #4 · Aug 30, 2005

definitely uninstall norton. a better anti-virus to get is AVG. you can download AVG from www.majorgeeks.com AVG doesnt take up system resources like norton and it detects alot more viruses. AVG rocks!!!!

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hopper

· #5 · Aug 30, 2005 (Edited)

Agreed. Using AVG for 5 years. Never had an infection.

Oh, forgot to add - free for home users. No subscription fees.

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NKfloofiepoof

Discussion Starter · #6 · Aug 30, 2005

I just downloaded Symantec's own Norton 2005 remover, but I just want confirmation that it's not going to rape my computer alive when I uninstall it like it has my friends in the past (granted, they did the standard Control Panel -> Add/Remove, not Symantec's uninstaller). I know I should back up, elf, but as I stated, there's no way for me to back up. I can't afford an external hard drive nor the number of CDs it would take to burn everything (and I don't have a DVD burner yet) =/

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koala

· #7 · Aug 30, 2005 (Edited)

There shouldn't be any problems uninstalling Norton, but if your data really is important and can't be replaced you have to make a backup before making any major system changes. Have a look on ebay or your local PC store for a 20 or 40Gb internal drive. Small ones are very cheap these days.

The one thing you can count on happening eventually is the hard drive will crash in some way... bad sectors, overheating, metallic clicking sounds etc. and by then it could be too late to easily recover your files.

Good luck! Post back and let us know how it went.

EDIT: One more idea, if you're still worried about losing your files, slave your hard drive into a friend's PC and copy the files to their hard drive until after you've replaced Norton.

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tiger025

· #8 · Aug 31, 2005

I had terriable problems fixing norton when it messed up on my a while ago. It would not uninstall and I could not reinstall it, so basically it screwed me over. They said there were about 1000's reg keys I could manually modify... But that was just not gonna happen.

Also I stronly recommend AVG as well. It really does kick a lot of ***. :smooch:

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NKfloofiepoof

Discussion Starter · #9 · Aug 31, 2005

tiger025 said:
I had terriable problems fixing norton when it messed up on my a while ago. It would not uninstall and I could not reinstall it, so basically it screwed me over. They said there were about 1000's reg keys I could manually modify... But that was just not gonna happen.

That's exactly what happened to my friends' computers when they tried to uninstall Norton, and they said they had to reformat their hard drives to get around it. =/ Were you using Symantec's uninstaller or going through Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs?

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NKfloofiepoof

Discussion Starter · #10 · Sep 5, 2005

I used Symantec's uninstaller, and it worked just fine even if it ate half a dozen or so of my system tray shortcuts in the process. I think I'm going to have to redownload/reinstall Spybot because Norton totally mauled TeaTimer, but that's much preferable to having to reformat. I just wasted $45 on a 15-gig external hard drive I didn't need~ But I'm definitely keeping it on-hand.

Thanks everyone who gave me input and especially thanks for pointing me to Symantec's uninstaller. I'd much rather have a few swallowed shortcuts than a mauled hard drive.

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elf

· #11 · Sep 5, 2005

$45 for a 15gig?! You can get a 80gig internal drive for that price...

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· #12 · Sep 5, 2005

Symantec removal tool is the best piece of software that symantec came up with. I apriciate them. But it doesn't remove lots of its junk from the registry. Stops the services removes most of the files. I would do a good junk clean up after norton.

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NKfloofiepoof

Discussion Starter · #13 · Sep 5, 2005

elf said:
$45 for a 15gig?! You can get a 80gig internal drive for that price...

I don't need that much space (there was only about 7 gigs or less worth of stuff I needed to back up), and I didn't want an internal one anyway. This one's just the right size for what I need, and it's portable so I can transfer things from my office computer I would normally need to burn CDs for (512-meg USB drive doesn't cut it sometimes)

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kyle v

· #14 · Sep 5, 2005

once you remove norton anti virus you should give trend micro PC-Cillin internet security a try Ive beeen using it for about 1 year and I love it. It doesn't take ( barely) any system resources and is much more powerful than norton. I usued norton too and I hated it I like trnd much better

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