Antivirus is one of the essential programs for any Windows system. But it is also one of the programs that, due to its nature, runs at the lowest level and, therefore, is more likely to cause problems in Windows. We have already seen on several occasions how, for example, an antivirus causes problems when updating Windows. But where we can also find many problems is, above all, when uninstalling the security suite.
In general, when we install an antivirus on our computer, it is to trust everything related to security. However, what happens if the antivirus gives us problems, goes bad, or its renewal is too expensive and we want to change? The first thing we must do, always, is to uninstall any other antivirus or security suite that we have installed on the PC. If not, the safest thing is that we will run into problems when starting the new antivirus .
However, this is not always possible. Sometimes we can find that, when trying to uninstall the antivirus, the process fails. And either it is not uninstalled or it is deleted “half”. Why?
A virus has the antivirus checked
As good and expensive as an antivirus is, it is not foolproof. There is always a small probability that a virus, whether due to a failure in the AV engine or a failure in Windows, can infect our PC. And if it does, the first thing that will attack is the antivirus.
The most common thing is that the malware has damaged the installation of the security software so that, although we think that we are protected, in reality this antivirus is not doing anything on the PC. Therefore, when we try to uninstall it, being corrupt, or controlled by the virus, we will find error messages.
What we must do in this case is to download the latest version of the antivirus by hand, and try to install it from Windows Safe Mode. If we succeed, the installation will be repaired. And now we will have to uninstall it from this same Safe Mode before the virus corrupts it again.
We have used optimizers that have deleted files or registry entries
Cleaning programs , like CCleaner or Clean Master, are often more of a placebo, and a source of problems, than anything else. These programs analyze our hard drives and delete all those files that they consider unnecessary. However, sometimes they can find files that, although they seem unnecessary, can actually corrupt programs, such as antivirus. The same happens with the registry cleaning functions, both of these programs and of any other specialized one.
If the wizard finds an integrity flaw when uninstalling the antivirus, it will not be able to continue. And, therefore, we will see an error that will prevent us from finishing deleting the antivirus.
The solution to this problem is that, if our program created a backup before cleaning, we restore it. Otherwise, we have to try to reinstall the latest version and then uninstall it.
A bad update has left the antivirus corrupted
Although it is not very common, it can happen that an update of the antivirus, or of the operating system itself, ends up corrupting the installation of the security software . When this happens, the antivirus stops working, and worst of all, we can neither reinstall it (because, in theory, it already is) nor delete it (because it is not installed). Therefore, we are at a standstill.
In this case, what usually works is to use an antivirus uninstaller to eliminate and clean all the traces of the security software and, later, reinstall it, or install the other security solution that we want to put in place to protect the PC.
We do not have permission in Windows
Only administrators can make changes to the computer’s security settings. Therefore, if we do not have administrator permissions , and we only have user permission, then we will not be able to uninstall the security software.
The only way to solve this problem is by logging in with a user who does have administrator permissions to be able to erase the security software. And, after doing so, install the new AV on the PC.
