REMOVAL OF MCAFEE VIRUS SCAN-PLEASE HELP!

Question

I am trying to delete/remove McAfee Virus Scan and the computer will NOT do it.  I downloaded another virus scan product called F-Secure Anti-Virus 2 and it's telling me before I can use it I must delete all existing virus scan programs.  I went to the change/remove area where you can remove software (I have XP) and I click on 'remove,' and NOTHING happens.  It won't go away.  I have a virus (win host 32) or something like that and it won't let me run the virus scan at all.  Is there any way I can delete McAfee so that I can use this newly installed F-Secure Anti Virus program?  All I want to do is get rid of that Host 32 virus once and for all.  Can someone out there help me please??   Thanks

IRON_DUKE · Answer

Greetings! I do broadband tech support for a living, and I come across these kinds of issues from customers (virus problems, spyware issues, sometimes both) on a daily basis.   It appears that you may have a larger problem.  You already at least suspect that your PC is infected by one or more viruses.  Depending on the type(s) of viruses involved, they will sometimes also affect your anti-virus programs, making them unreliable to fix a problem in the least, and totally unusable in the worst-case scenario.   I am suspecting the latter...if you are unable to get your McAffee product to run properly or at least effectively, then I would not expect F-Secure Anti-Virus 2 (although a perfectly OK product) to work either.  The reason being is that it is likely that your PC is hacked and is under the control of the hacker.  One of the first things a hacker might do is create a new user 'ghost' account with Administrator rights and then use this to 'lock out' other users with Administrator rights or access.  With Windows XP, you are then unable to install/uninstall other programs, for example.  Sounds familiar?  :smileymad:   At this stage, your best option is to make sure your important files are backed up OFF of the PC and to have ALL PARTITIONS on your PC hard drive reformatted and the OS reinstalled and all Windows 'critical' updates (i.e. security-related) installed.  Take the opportunity at this point to have an anti-virus program as well as one or more spyware scanning/removal programs installed (plenty of good free ones out there for these).  Make sure you keep these all UP TO DATE by updating them regularly.  The most common source of virus infection are form those who have anti-virus installed on their PC but do not update regularly (if ever)...it is then just a matter of time.  Make sure ANY backup files you copy back to the newly-reformatted PC are scanned for viruses as you go along to help prevent re-infection in case one or more of those files are in fact infected themselves.    I hope that this helps somewhat...!  Good luck!    Wellington

GreenEyes84 · Answer

That is what I was afraid of.  How do I go about doing this myself?  I'm not very tech savvy.  I also can't afford to pay the guy at Comp USA to do this.  Can you walk me through it via email?? Thanks so much! Cheri D.

Virus & Spyware

REMOVAL OF MCAFEE VIRUS SCAN-PLEASE HELP!

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