Speccy detecting malwarebytes and norton even though they are uninstalled

[SpeccyUser]

http://speccy.piriform.com/results/qP8jVILSKKyaollgIDAk3Sp
Here is my speccy report.

My issue is that speccy is detecting norton security (as disabled) and malwarebytes (as enabled) in the report even though I have already used the respective software removal tools for each of the antiviruses. Is there some sort of file that remains anyways even after uninstallation and gives a false negative to speccy? How can I remove it?

[nukecad]

There are often leftover registry entries and files/folders following an uninstall, and especially from uninstalls of Antivirus/Antimalware apps that have self-protection.

Usually using the security app's own removal tool rather than just uninstalling gets rid of everything, but even that sometimes leaves things behind.

I'd try using Revo Uninstaller which can find and remove such leftovers.
As you have already removed Norton and Malwarebytes you will probably need the 'Forced Uninstall' option in Revo.
See the link below for how to use it.
'Forced Uninstall' is a Pro option so it needs to be the Revo Pro version - but if you don't want to purchase Revo there is a 30 day trial of Pro which should be plenty of time to do this job.

(PS. You can also achieve the same as 'Forced Uninstall' with Revo Free, it just takes more steps - Once you have Revo Free installed then re-install the offending app and use Revo Free to uninstall it again, it's just more faffing about having to do that re-install/uninstall).

https://www.revouninstaller.com/how-to/use-forced-uninstall/

https://www.revouninstaller.com/revo-uninstaller-free-download/

[Andavari]

Sometimes it's because Windows registered it as an antivirus that could be used as real-time protection which sometimes the antivirus/antimalware built in uninstaller won't or can't remove and the same goes for their removal tools that are supposed to remove all of the files and registry settings. Even Revo may not be able to remove them from where Windows registers them.

I personally had a fix for that on my WinXP system when removing for instance Panda AV and then using something else, but I haven't messed with it since using Win10.

[nukecad]

1 hour ago, Andavari said:

Sometimes it's because Windows registered it as an antivirus that could be used as real-time protection

I'm not sure that Win 10 does that anymore?
Because Defender is always available in Win 10 and will kick-in automatically if there is no other AV registered as active in the Security Centre.

[Andavari]

18 hours ago, nukecad said:

I'm not sure that Win 10 does that anymore?
Because Defender is always available in Win 10 and will kick-in automatically if there is no other AV registered as active in the Security Centre.

I haven't a clue because I've only ever used Windows Defender with Win10, although in old WinXP there'd be permanent crumbs left behind specifically with Panda AV (maybe other AVs too) that had to have the system disconnect from the Internet as a safety precaution and then have certain services turned off and "database" rebuilt followed by a reboot, and then re-enabling of certain services - definitely not something a standard uninstaller will do or even Revo.

Then there's also registry crumbs in CurrentControlSet that typically are always left behind that have to have admin privileges set on those not-so-obvious keys just to delete them.

[lmacri]

On 04/01/2022 at 10:47, SpeccyUser said:

... My issue is that speccy is detecting norton security (as disabled) and malwarebytes (as enabled) in the report even though I have already used the respective software removal tools for each of the antiviruses ...

On 04/01/2022 at 12:33, nukecad said:

....I'd try using Revo Uninstaller which can find and remove such leftovers.As you have already removed Norton and Malwarebytes you will probably need the 'Forced Uninstall' option in Revo ...'Forced Uninstall' is a Pro option so it needs to be the Revo Pro version - but if you don't want to purchase Revo there is a 30 day trial of Pro which should be plenty of time to do this job ...

Hi SpeccyUser:

If the "Forced Uninstall" option of the trial version of Revo Uninstaller Pro can't remove the last traces of Norton then be sure you run the Norton Remove and Reinstall (NRnR) Tool in advanced "Remove Only" mode as instructed in the Norton support article Download and Run the Norton Remove and Reinstall Tool for Windows.  "Remove Only" mode does a deeper wipe of orphaned files and registry entries, although it (deliberately) leaves behind a few traces that can be removed manually.

I used Norton for several years on a Vista SP2 computer and found that a "Remove Only" wipe with the NRnR tool did not do a great job of removing remnants of previous Control Panel | Programs and Features uninstalls, especially for my older Norton products. I contacted Norton customer support via Live Chat at https://www.norton.com/chat and gave them my Windows OS and Norton product names (past and current) and they were able to provide a list of possible registry entries and files/folders left behind by the NRnR tool that I could manually delete.  If you post in the Norton forum at https://community.norton.com/en/forums/norton-360-windows one of the Norton Gurus monitoring that forum might be able to help as well.

I'll assume the Malwarebytes removal tool you used was the removal tool built in to the Malwarebytes Support Tool (Advanced | Clean) .
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