New Computer with Trial McAfee Livesafe Software

Nope, that would be too easy :)

When the trial is over, the trial of McAfee will start bugging you and asking you to purchase the subscription. You'll want to go into Control Panel and uninstall the Trial McAfee Lifesafe.

It's actually very bad to have more than one antivirus installed at once, they can conflict and cause big security holes, and even if not, they slow down the computer significantly because everything is trying to scan every file that gets used. So they compete against each other and lock files for scanning and it just cascades until your computer is very slow.

My personal recommendation is to avoid McAfee and just use the Windows 8 built-in antivirus (Defender).  Windows 8 is the first one that has this, and it's quite good (same protection used by giant businesses like Dell and Microsoft).  Plus, you never have to pay for Defender, because it's built in.

Of course, if you prefer McAfee, there's no reason NOT to use it.  You can certainly keep using it as long as you want (Defender will politely turn itself off when it sees that you have another antivirus installed).

So long story short:  if you want to use McAfee, just be sure to uninstall the Live Safe one and install the proper MSN one when your trial is over.

McAfee has a nasty habit of leaving behind modules when uninstalled manually or via control panel, that can in turn cause conflicts with the replacement AV.

To avoid this scenario, it is best to use the removal tool linked below.

How to uninstall or reinstall supported McAfee products using the Consumer Products Removal tool (MCPR)

http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?id=TS101331

Download the MCPR tool from: http://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/MCPR.exe

Thanks so very much Shawn for your helpful advice.  If I decide to use Windows Defender and don't download the McAfee provided with MSN, do I have to do anything to enable Defender or does it automatically engage?  Thanks

It should automatically engage.  You can confirm by typing "defend" on your Start screen to find and open Defender.

Hello BartonEwait,

Windows Defender runs by default in Windows 8 unless you install another anti virus application. It is the 'other' anti virus that turns Windows Defender off. As you have not installed a third party anti virus application, Windows Defender is already running so there is no need for you to do anything.

Personally, I always suggest that McAfee or Norton applications are not used on the PC as they do have a tendency to slow the PC down and use far more resources than Windows Defender. On a lighter side, though, why pay for McAfee or Norton when you have Windows defender for free?

This forum post is my own opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion or view of Microsoft, its employees, or other MVPs.

John Barnett MVP: Windows XP Associate Expert: Windows Expert - Consumer: www.winuser.co.uk | vistasupport.mvps.org | xphelpandsupport.mvps.org | www.silversurfer-guide.com