If MS Antispyware wipes out your Norton install, the fastest and easiest way to clean out Norton to prepare for a reinstall is with Symantec's Norton Removal Tool, aka SymNRT. It's available for free from their website and is designed for situations like this where the install gets corrupted and you can't remove it.
The tool removes every trace of Norton from your system. It does a better job than the normal uninstaller.
So then why isn't SymNRT the official packaged Norton Uninstaller? I know they may want to keep some reg entries in there but my experience with Norton shows such common sense is lacking sorely in their products. In that case,start withthe SymNRT and have it skip the few things you want to keep(i.e. to make sure users don't reinstall to reset their renewal date).
Can't tell you how many calls I've gotten where some email wouldn't work, or the computer runs too slow(NIS 2004), file sharing doesn't work, or
When I used SymNRT and those batch files they have on their site, they did something to my Windows msi installer. For about two weeks after removing everything Norton from my machine, the Windows installer would randomly pop up and run for a few seconds, usually during application launches (apps totally unrelated to Norton). It generally wasn't a problem, since it would pop-up, the thermometer would chug for a second, then it would be done and close. The biggest problem was that Quicken couldn't make backup
I had to use SymNRT to uninstall a broken installation of System Works 2003(which worked fine except for the fact that Speed Disk, the utility I tend to use most often out of the entire suite was not installed). After finishing up, every time I tried to create a new object (folder, text file, etc) or rename something through explorer, the Roxio installer would fire up. I ended up uninstalling EZCD Creator since I don't use it much any more since I upgraded to the latest Nero and things went back to normal.
SymNRT does not remove every trace by far. Twice now I've run SymNRT on systems with totally broken Norton Internet Security installations (so broken the normal uninstaller just shits out) and Windows Security Center still thinks that NIS is installed and working fine after SymNRT is run. Can't figure out where the hell it's getting that information from, and I've spent hours searching and deleting things from the system registry with any sort of Symantec reference, but it still remains. Furthermore, there
I gotta call bullsh*t on that as a blanket statement. The tool works sometimes, not all the time. As to how it deals with M$ honking Norton I profess ignorance. But I say again that tool does NOT work all the time.
Norton needs a special utility to remove it, that reminds me of something else, something nasty that people have a hard time removing that eats resources and basically screws your pc...oh yea torjans/worms and spyware!
Faster way to clean up Norton (Score:5, Informative)
The tool removes every trace of Norton from your system. It does a better job than the normal uninstaller.
Re:Faster way to clean up Norton (Score:1)
Can't tell you how many calls I've gotten where some email wouldn't work, or the computer runs too slow(NIS 2004), file sharing doesn't work, or
Re:Faster way to clean up Norton (Score:2)
Did the same thing to me... (Score:1)
After finishing up, every time I tried to create a new object (folder, text file, etc) or rename something through explorer, the Roxio installer would fire up. I ended up uninstalling EZCD Creator since I don't use it much any more since I upgraded to the latest Nero and things went back to normal.
W
Re:Faster way to clean up Norton (Score:2)
Re:Faster way to clean up Norton (Score:2)
That's obviously to keep MS Anti-spyware from invoking it!
Re:Faster way to clean up Norton (Score:1)
Re:Faster way to clean up Norton (Score:1)
So maybe MS were right to remove it:)
Re:Faster way to clean up Norton (Score:1)