If you are planning to uninstall McAfee antivirus or its other security products from your computer, then it is recommended to use McAfee’s official removal tool. This would be the safest and easiest way to uninstall the McAfee antivirus from your computer. Go to the download section below to download McAfee’s uninstall tool.
Why we should use McAfee removal tool: Sometimes when we uninstall McAfee from add / remove program (Control Panel), it fails and gives an error message that you cannot uninstall McAfee. See the screenshot below.
In this state, some registry entries might remain in the windows registry that may create conflict when you install a new antivirus on your computer.
That’s why we should use the McAfee removal tool to uninstall the McAfee antivirus completely from the computer. We don’t recommend you to try mcafee directly from the control panel.
Download McAfee uninstall tool
The removal tool is an official tool provided by McAfee company. It supported Windows 10, 7, 8, Vista, XP operating system.
Click on the link below to download the McAfee uninstaller tool
Download McAfee uninstall tool
(http://us.mcafee.com/apps/supporttools/mcpr/mcpr.asp)
Removal tool can remove the following McAfee products:
- McAfee Total Protection
- McAfee Antivirus
- McAfee Internet Security
- McAfee Enterprise Security
- Cloud and End Point Security
- McAfee Virus Scan only
How to use McAfee Removal tool
- Download McAfee’s software removal tool from the above given link.
- Run it and click on ‘Install anyway‘ or ‘yes‘ if asked.
- Click on Next. Click on Agree.
- Now enter security validation keys or Captcha key to confirm that you are a human.
- Clicking on next will start the removal process. It will take some time and after completion of the process it will display a message that Removal Complete.
- Restarting the computer and removal process is now complete. You can now reinstall McAfee or install other security software without any issues.
- That’s it.
The above utility will work on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 (32 bit and 64 bit).
FAQ:
Q: Why use McAfee removal utility instead of simple uninstall?
A: If you don’t use the removal tool you might face problems related to re-installation, license activation or compatibility issues.
Q: Does this utility work to remove the Livesafe product?
A: Yes, this tool can be used to remove all of the McAfee products like McAfee Antivirus, Internet security, Total protection and Live safe.
Q: How to remove McAfee WebAdvisor or SiteAdvisor?
A: You can uninstall these from the Add/Remove programs in the Control Panel. No special removal is required for it.
Q: How to remove endpoint product. Will this work for the endpoint security?
A: No, to remove an enterprise product. You need to download the EPR tool. Formerly it was known as McAfee Ripper. You need to login to download this tool.
If you’re having problem in uninstalling mcafee even after using its removal tool, then you should try a third party uninstaller tool like Revo uninstaller / Geeks Uninstaller. Macfee will be removed manually from your hard-disk and from the Windows registry too. Revo removes left-over registry entries from windows registry.
Still have doubts, ask your query in our tech community here. It’s free.