The program that won't go away

[whoblitzell]

To make a long story short, I fudged a manual uninstall of a product my college would prefer I didnt' remove from my computer and thus disabled an automatic uninstall.

Now whenever I right click a file (on Windows XP Home) an annoying Windows Installer box pops up trying to reinstall the virus scanner I tried to uninstall. Is there any way to remove this short of formatting? I've tried numerous registry cleaning/fixing programs including System Mechanic and none have quite done the trick.

The program is Symantec Antivirus, and I'd post my system specs but I don't think it is really relevant to the situation.

 

[Logical_1]

The obvious thing would be to get the program reinstalled and then just disable it. What kind of sane person removes their anti-virus software in this day and age?

Beyond that, you may try checking the following reg keys, back them up, then remove them. If you just remove them without backing them up, don't blame me if your system breaks.

 

[whoblitzell]

The reinstall idea didn't work because it was a corrupt uninstallation, but after going through and deleting every key with the product name, it was still there.

I borrowed my friend's copy of System Mechanic (which is technically piracy, but oh well) and and was able to use its uninstaller to bypass the school's lock on the software. Oh well, in my opinion the school has no business telling me what software to keep on MY computer and when I can uninstall it or when I can't. Or bundling spyware with the same CD, but oh well I found a better virus scanner.

Thanks for your help, Logical1.

 

[CaptTuna]

If you're hooked into their network they have every right to make sure your computer is protected.
You fudged, your words, a simple uninstall. Who knows what other things you might "fudge".

 

[whoblitzell]

If you're hooked into their network they have every right to make sure your computer is protected.
You fudged, your words, a simple uninstall. Who knows what other things you might "fudge".

I did not call it a simple uninstall, and I explained why it was hard to do, but apparently you didn't do a very good job of reading that part?

What I actually said was "I fudged a manual uninstall of a product my college would prefer I didnt' remove from my computer and thus disabled an automatic uninstall."

It isn't exceptionally easy to manually remove software that doesn't want to go away (i.e. integrated like IE/WMP or auto-reinstalling, et. al.).

As far as them having the right to make sure my computer is protected, sure. But I'm allowed to uninstall software on what is MY machine and NOT theirs. They don't have the right to tell me I cannot uninstall something from my own property, and definitely not that I have to use their brand of virus scanner/firewall.

It is possible that I could fudge my computer, but that isn't their concern. If I get a virus that makes it onto their network, then they can sue me and/or ban me from the network, that is their right to their private property of their network. I have a right to the private property of my computer and since there is no contract or expressedly written rules demanding the usage of this virus scanner (only verbal warnings), there is no legal basis for them to force me to use their software. I'll keep what I want on my computer and they can keep what they want on their network, and they can ban me if I do anything wrong like upload/get a virus, but with zonealarm and McAfee (the virus scanner I prefer as opposed to their preference of Symantec) I really doubt that is going to happen.

 

[Logical_1]

It sounds like the simplest solution since you choose not to abide their wishes is to not access their network or traverse through it and you will not face this problem and can freely run whatever applications you wish. As far as doing so cleanly, why not just format the drive and start over? BTW, how did the application get on the machine in the first place if you did not allow it?