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I recently purchased a dell laptop (windows 10 )with a free trial of McAfee. I do not wish to use McAfee so I uninstalled the program via add/remove programs. I noted some McAfee files remained on my PC, therefore I also ran MCPR tool. The files are still there. if I search for McAfee on my laptop I am still finding files. How can I fully remove ALL traces of McAfee from my laptop?
I reallu wish computers would would refrain from installing so much junk on their machines that are hard to remove. I want to use Windows defender only, and don't want unwanted files remaining in my system.
Thanks in advance. 😀
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Wow that really is a lot of info needed just to remove files on a program I didn't even choose to have on my laptop! 😩 I will try and get it all tomorrow! I can't believe Windows has made it so difficult to remove a program and all it's associated files! 😬
Fact: McAfee (and Norton) applications are notorious for not uninstalling (or upgrading) cleanly.
Did you (a) uninstall the McAfee free-trialware AND THEN (b) download/run the McAfee Consumer Products Removal Tool& reboot (c) BEFORE you started to rely on Windows Defender & Firewall to protect your computer AND BEFORE you installed or attempted to install any updates?
Hi there,
Thank you for your reply. I believe it is just left over files. Here are the pictures when I search my computer for mcafee. Someone at mcafee suggested I manually move all of these to the recycle bin, however I know previously people advise against doing this with left over files. Someone has suggested I use a program colled revo uninstaller to remove the remaining files. Would you advise this?
Thanks again.
Liz
Hi,
It is possible that a fake antivirus is causing the issue.
To assist you, can you send us a screenshot of the remaining McAfee files from your computer?
Regards.
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Eliza,
These remaining McAfee files are nothing more than a few cached portions of the web page from the evening of 19/09/2016, likely when you browsed there to download the MCPR tool, along with a number of files labeled "McAfee LiveSafe" all contained in the Dell Help & Support folder.
These latter files are likely just the separate help information Dell provides for their bundled software and so have nothing to do with operating the AV product itself.
There is also a folder named McAfee in the ProgramData folder, but these remnants virtually always remain after removal of a program and take a tiny amount of storage space, so there's really no concern that this will create any future problems with system operation.
So it appears the MCPR did its job and no actual portions of the antivirus program, at least those containing the word mcafee that you searched for, remain on your system.
You could reinstall your system from scratch without the Dell supplied help or tools and any other junkware they may include, but unless this is otherwise causing issues I'd consider it a waste of time, so I won't be explaining the method required.
In other words, you're worrying about nothing.
Rob
