if im getting the same company’s virus protection again, do i have to uninstall the old one?
like lets say you have mcafee and you get another mcafee but a different version. like internet security or 360.
and im thinking about getting a cd, not renewing it online
Tagged with: internet security • mcafee • virus protection
Filed under: PC Tools
Yes, you have to uninstall it first.Norton, AVG ,Avast are free anti virus software. Ad-aware, Ewido are free spyware removers.You can download free softwares at http://fixit.in/antivirus.html and http://fixit.in/ spywareremover.html .You can also run a free registry scan using utilities from
http://re7.info
If you want to be extra sure of starting clean, you SHOULD remove the old one completely.
Here is the proper 3-steps (or 4-steps) way to do it:
NOTE: After you have downloaded and installed the programs in steps 1 & 2 and before doing the removal, temporarily unplug the Internet connection !
1) Use Revo Uninstaller ( http://www.revouninstaller.com/ ) – an innovative freeware uninstall utility that will fully remove the old Virus scanner with its advanced and fast algorithm.
Revo Uninstaller analyzes an application’s data before uninstall and scans after you uninstall an application.
After the program’s regular uninstaller runs, you can remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that are usually left over on your computer.
Even if you have a broken installation, Revo Uninstaller scans for an application’s data on your hard disk drives and in the Windows registry and shows all found files, folders and registry keys so you can delete them.
2) Use Glary Utilities: http://www.glaryutilities.com/gu.html to remove junk files, remnants of installs/uninstalls and orphan registry entries (there is always some).
3) Use your preferred Disk Defragmenter.
Additional step to do if your new protection includes a Firewall
4) Disable the existing one.
Reboot and then install the new protection from the CD.
Adjust its options and finally, plug back the Internet connection
Hope this helps
If you plan to upgrade an existing program then the new version should over-write the old version but leave any preferences, e.g. time of scans, etc, in place. However, I’d prefer to uninstall the old version and start again.
If you’re changing from, say, McAfee to Norton, then you definitely need to uninstall the old one. You *should* be able to uninstall OK via Add/Remove Programs but some programs don’t uninstall cleanly and the bits they leave behind can really mess up installation of the next AV, so the best bet is to Google for "uninstall (name of program)" and see if there’s a special uninstaller from the maker, then run that.
I prefer to have it on CD but, to be honest, it doesn’t make much difference. Just make sure you keep a not of the product key (serial number).
If you are getting an anti virus from the same company then it should uninstall the original automatically. If you are going to get one from a different company then I strongly suggest removing the old one first as if you run them side by side you will inevitably have problems. If it doesn’t remove the original automatically then before you run a scan go to add/remove programs and remove it
I can only say what I did.
I had McAfee and when it was time to renew I downloaded the removal tool from their website to remove all remnants of the programme before installing the new CD.
Up to you how you go about it but it worked fine for me by doing it this way.