Looking for a workable way to get antivirus programs off your system? There are always many reasons that make you want to uninstall programs from your computer from time to time. To keep your computer work properly, it's always a good habit to uninstall antivirus programs you haven't used for a long time. However, we cannot have everything we wish for. There may be also many problems that make you not able to uninstall antivirus programs from your PC, such as program errors, program not listed in Programs and Features, corrupted programs and so on. Therefore, to help you out, we've also worked out a few workable methods as well.

Possible Error Caused by Incorrect Uninstall Methods

Error example

The above error messages are all caused by incomplete uninstallation of related programs. Incompletely uninstallation of a program will leave some invalid keys in the system registry, which will cause such error pop-ups when the system still executes them.

Automatically Uninstall antivirus programs (Recommended):

This Automatic Uninstaller will completely scan through the whole registry and hard drive and detect all files and components that belong to antivirus programs. With this Automatic Uninstaller, uninstalling a program completely can be as easy as ABC for you in the future.

Manually Uninstall antivirus programs:

Step 1: End all processes that are related to antivirus programs

Step 2: Uninstall antivirus programs

Step 3: Delete invalid entries of antivirus programs in the registry

Step 4: Delete leftovers of antivirus programs in hard drive

Step 1: End all processes that are related to antivirus programs

Hold Ctrl, Shift and Esc keys on the keyboard to open Task Manager. Then click on the related process and click End Process (in Windows 7, Vista) or End Task (in Windows 8) button.

Step 2: Uninstall antivirus programs

You can uninstall antivirus programs by any of the following uninstall methods:

Method 1: Uninstall antivirus programs via Control Panel

1. Press Windows key and R key to open Run command.

2. When Run command pops up, type in appwiz.cpl and then hit OK button.

3. Right click on antivirus programs and click Uninstall to uninstall antivirus programs

Note: Usually, computer users can uninstall programs like antivirus programs through Control Panel. But not everything can go as people wish and problems happen sometimes. For example, users may not be able to find antivirus programs in Control Panel, or the uninstallation is interrupted due to some strange errors. If problems happen unexpectedly and you really want to completely remove antivirus programs from your computer system, you need to perform the following steps and manually remove all of its files and components out of the system.

Method 2: Uninstall antivirus programs using its Uninstall.exe

If you cannot find antivirus programs in Programs and Features, then you may be able to uninstall it thru its uninstall.exe.

a. For 32-bit Windows 7, Vista, 8 or later, open the C:\Program Files folder, open the program's folder (ex: WinRAR), and go to step 3 below.

b. For 64-bit Windows 7, Vista, 8 or later, open either the C:\Program Files folder for an installed 64-bit program or C:\Program Files (x86) folder for a installed 32-bit program, and open the program's folder (ex: WinRAR).

Method 3: Uninstall antivirus programs via Windows Registry

1. Open regedit. To do so, press Windows and R keys, type in regedit and hit Enter.

2. Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

3. Find the program you want to uninstall, search for a string value called UninstallString in the right panel.

4. Double-click on it and copy its value.

5. Press Windows and R keys, type in cmd to open command prompt.

6. Right click, paste the value and hit Enter key. After that, the program will begin to uninstall. Click Yes when it asks for your confirmation.

Note: If you have a 64-bit Windows system, you may need to navigate to the following key to look for 32-bit programs:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Method 4: Use System Restore to Uninstall antivirus programs

System Restore is a useful built-in utility that allows computer users to roll back to the previous state when the computer works properly. If you have a habit of creating a system restore point before installing a new program, you can roll back to this system restore point if this new piece of program is not up to your expectation or cannot be uninstalled from your computer properly.

Method 5: Uninstall antivirus programs via Virus Removal Tool

Some unwanted programs can install into your computer without being noticed, as they like to spread by attaching to free software and games that people often download online. Sometimes, you cannot remember when certain program was installed on your computer until you suffer a lot from its annoying pop-ups. Usually, this kind of potentially unwanted programs can escape from the detection of your installed antivirus. If you have tried the above methods but still fail to remove antivirus programs, it's really necessary for you to check whether it's a virus or not. Click and download this powerful Virus Removal Tool to check your PC. If it's a computer virus, it will be automatically deleted when you click Remove after the scan.

Step 3: Delete invalid entries of antivirus programs in the registry

Video Guide: How to back up and edit the registry

Note: It's very important for you to know that the registry is one of the most important part of the Windows system, you should be extremely careful when deleting any keys in the registry. Any small mistake can result in severe problems or even system crash. So removing antivirus programs by editing the registry is only recommended to computer users with certain computer knowledge. If you don't want to take the risk to damage your computer system, it's recomended that you use this Automatic Registry Cleaner to clean invalid keys.

Step 4: End all processes that are related to antivirus programs

Even you uninstall antivirus programs in Control Panel and remove invalid keys in the registry, there are still some folders left in hard drive. To completely remove antivirus programs from your system, you can go to the following locations to delete the folders of antivirus programs.

C:\Program Files (x86)
C:\Program Files
C:\ProgramData
C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local
C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming

Uninstall antivirus programs via Automatic Uninstaller

Manually uninstalling antivirus programs cannot promise a 100% removal of antivirus programs, especially for computer users with little computer knowledge. If you have tried the above manual uninstall steps but still cannot get antivirus programs removed from your system, it's very necessary for you to use this Automatic Uninstaller to do it for you. With only a few clicks, you can easily uninstall any stubborn program from your computer system.