Right click = "Installing..."

[Jayce]

I came across a system today that was heavily infected with the (anti) virus known as Symantec. We had unfortunately ran Symantec on our systems once upon a time and removed it for obvious reasons. Out of no where when I was right clicking, a menu came up saying Installing Symantec... and then gave me an error.

This particular computer is about to get thrown out the Window. At one point on this very same computer, I was unable to remove it. So I got the manual uninstall guide from Symantec, which told me the exact registry keys to delete to fully remove Symantec.

So I'm a little confused on why it's coming back up. I already spent my 2 hours of time manually removing it. What else (besides re-imaging it) can I do to get rid of Symantec?

 

[Lexluethar]

To remove it did you uninstall it or run their uninstallation unitlity on their website?

 

[Osiris]

You still have registry keys belonging to Symantec in the system. I have went thru this many times. I simply searched the registry using FIND and deleting all keys that belong to SAV. I'm not sure which key it is because I would delete a bunch and see if the problem was fixed, if it wasnt i kept doing a bunch till it went away.

 

[Jayce]

When I originally uninstalled it, I did so using their uninstall tool, just like you'd typically find with most programs you install in Windows. But I kept seeing traces of it, like it was still trying to auto start when the computer would start, etc.

After that, I got their uninstallation instructions to remove it from the registry. Had no problems after that till about a month later (today). But then it just came up again, but ONLY when I right click... that's the weird part. It's completely dormant unless I right click on something. Anything. I tried to right click to hit copy - "Installing Symantec..."

 

[Osiris]

Run the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility

http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/9/d/e9d80355-7ab4-45b8-80e8-983a48d5e1bd/msicuu2.exe