September 4, 2007

When removing a piece of software to replace with another manufacturer's type, you must be extremely careful to remove all traces of the old software.  This is particularly important regarding Internet security suites, or stand alone programs like antivirus, and other utility type programs.

Unfortunately, most of these programs have uninstall programs, but they don't clean up after all the registry entries and all of the folders and files they created on your hard drive.  So, therefore, don't trust the uninstall to remove everything.

When you uninstall a program, for example, Norton Antivirus, my suggestion is to go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, and remove any and all programs associated.  In the case of Norton, it also includes Live Update and possibly more programs.

After removing in Control Panel, go to the manufacturer's web site and download and run any uninstall programs they may have available.  Many times these programs will remove more of the items than the uninstall program did.

Remember the cleaner the uninstall, the less chance there will be of problems using the new replacement program, since many of these programs will interfere with each other.