There are a few reasons why you may wish to uninstall antivirus programs from your Microsoft Windows based operating system, and you may be a little surprised to see just how hard it can be in some cases.

Antivirus software is often designed to be hard to remove from a system. This is partly because the software is intended to be foolproof from deletion by an unsuspected (and presumably untrained) computer user. And also because it has to be able to withstand the attack of malicious third party viruses, some of which have been known to try and render an anti-virus product completely immobile in a bid to take control of the system. So why would you want to uninstall antivirus software?

The main reason is to replace an existing antivirus suite with another. It’s a simple fact that trying to run two separate antivirus programs will result in horrible collisions and the increased likelihood that in their joint bid to stabilise a system, neither will work and viruses will in fact have an easier task infiltrating the vulnerable PC. To uninstall antivirus software and replace it with a new version, you have to be absolutely sure that you follow the uninstall process fully.

The other reason why you may wish to uninstall antivirus software is to install other software and devices that may need to be run with full access to the system and no Windows firewall in place. Now remember, whenever an installation package requests that you turn off your antivirus software, your alarm bells should immediately be ringing. Is this a good idea? To turn off the one layer of security that prevents your computer from being taken over by any technological Joe?

No reasonable hardware device should request that you remove your antivirus software entirely. Most will work if you simply switch the anti-virus protection layer off while the process completes. This should be enough, but some hardware devices have been known to have problems, even with the anti-virus software switched off. In this instance, running a complete uninstall may work. But it’s far from desirable as a solution.

Every antivirus software package is different when it comes to uninstalling them from the system. Much of the process depends on what parts of the tool you have installed. Some come with extra firewalls which will require manual deletion one by one. Follow the specific instructions for your own antivirus software.

Whenever you are going through the uninstall antivirus software process, you should close down all other programs and terminate unnecessary processes in the Windows task manager. This is to give the removal tool a clear run on the machine. You will have better luck uninstalling antivirus suites if they’re not being called upon at the time of deletion.

Terminate unnecessary processes and then run the removal tool. It will take a little while to uninstall the antivirus software completely. Lots of references will need to be cleared from the registry. Depending on your needs, you should run a full scan of the Windows registry after deletion to ensure that the uninstall antivirus process ran according to plan and didn’t leave any harmful references in the Windows registry. These could potentially affect any additional antivirus software that you decide to install later.