Sep172012

Can I run Avast next to McAfee and if not, how can I deactivate McAfee?

Vishwang Bhaskar asks:

I have a Dell Inspiron 7520. It came with 15 month McAfee Security Centre pre-installed. We have virus problem in our college DC, so we have been told to use Avast. I installed Avast Internet Security. Now I have both.

I have read that having two antivirus can create problems, so I want to deactivate McAfee, without uninstalling it because it is the original and Avast is not. Please help, so that I don’t face problems.


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System: Windows 7 Home Premium
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18 Answers -

0 votes

Dylan Brendan

September 17, 2012

Uninstall from Windows

0 votes

Jhon H. Caicedo

September 18, 2012

Running two antivirus could be possible but will make your system slower, I would recommend removing completely the solution you didn’t want to use. Check the details of the offer when you purchase your PC, your McAfee suscription probably is expired and is not being update, so unless you want to renew it ($$$) you will be better off uninstalling McAfee and let Avast running. (BTW, as a matter of personal choice, I prefer to use Avira Free Antivirus)

0 votes

Bruce Epper

September 18, 2012

You are much better off uninstalling McAfee rather than trying to simply disable it. (It is a piece of crap anyway, IMHO). There is a possibility that removing it at this point will also screw up your Avast installation so you may need to reinstall Avast after removing McAfee. You should also run the cleanup tool to remove the residual traces that its own uninstall leaves behind.

0 votes

Dalsan

September 18, 2012

I would get rid of McAfee completely as it is somewhat of a resource hog and, sadly, the free version of Avast works better at scanning and removing viruses and malware. If you want to just deactivate McAfee, as it will conflict with any other antivirus software, go here and follow the instructions: http://www.ehow.com/how_8301836_turn-off-mcafee-deleting.html. You could try going into the services and disable all associated services from starting, but not sure if it would conflict with anything or pop ups would come up staying that McAfee could not start properly and must reinstall it.

Dalsan

By the way, I’m sure that Bruce would agree with me that there at only 3 things that McAfee makes that are at least worth using: 1. McAfee Consumer Product Removal tool (MCPR.exe) . 2. WOT (Web Of Trust). 3. Stinger Scanner. Even the hated Microsoft Corporation created a security software that works better than McAfee, and it’s free.

September 18, 2012
0 votes

HLJonnalagadda

September 18, 2012

Having two different antivirus solutions is totally redundant. Avast Internet security actually offers incredible discounts to students in India. I got a 2 year license for as low as 500. Do look into that.

0 votes

Ermir Shehu

September 18, 2012

2 Antivirus will make your system slow and probably at times unresponsive (depending on the tasks you may have at hand)! I use avast and is a nice solution… I suggest you remove McAfee as probably it has expired (what can you do with an expired av?) and keep avast…

0 votes

Muhammad Ahmad

September 18, 2012

there is no way to completely disable mcafee. If you disable it there will be more entries in services and startup that you need to find and disable manually.

0 votes

susendeep dutta

September 18, 2012

It’s not good from McAfee as they had paid Dell for installing their software into their PCs.Moreover,it allowed viruses into your system,so better to uninstall it(if your college permits). Make sure that it’s not set to auto renewal.

How to Turn Off the McAfee Security Center -

http://www.ehow.com/how_6921693_turn-off-mcafee-security-center.html

0 votes

GrrGrrr

September 18, 2012

Mcafee is not good at all. Make sure remove it asap

0 votes

Jayson Loggenberg

September 18, 2012

I highly suggest not running both, just becomes laggy.
Go start —> Run—> msconfig —> Startp, and deselct Mcafee. This wills top it from running on startup, thus helping the overload.
Other option is to uninstall Mcafee, just make sure you have some install files lying around. Recover the CD Key, and when uninstalling it normally asks if you would like to keep the user settings etc.
Other option, bugger what they are telling you at school. Use mcafee, I have had very few problems with it. If you are really worried about the virus, ask them the name of the virus and strain, then do some research and see if Mcafee catches it…

0 votes

573d1210d64cc82ed1979188e3b9622a

September 18, 2012

running two antivirus programs can conflict and can crash your computer which is very bad

0 votes

573d1210d64cc82ed1979188e3b9622a

September 18, 2012

so you should unistall it from your computer, ccleaner is a good one

0 votes

Erlis Dhima

September 18, 2012

McAfee is nothing but good.. So, uninstall it! Or better saying, clean uninstall both the antiviruses, and reinstall avast again..
Even if you keep McAfee, it’s license with expire after some time!
But, anyway, if you are so obsessed and want only to disable it, I can give you some tips!
To disable it, means you have to disable all his services and autorun services…
Follow this steps:
1. Start
2. In the search bar type: msconfig
3. Go to services tab, and disable all that have to do with McAfee
4. Go to startup tab, and disable all those that have to do with McAfee again..
5. Click OK & restart!
6. Done

Hope this helped!

0 votes

Vishwang Bhaskar

September 19, 2012

thank you :)

sam

open the console
than open the real time protection
uncheck the box ‘do not allow mcfee to turn off
then close the window
right click on the bottom icon
there should be option now to turn off

September 29, 2012
0 votes

573d1210d64cc82ed1979188e3b9622a

October 1, 2012

them two antiviruses can cause conflicts such as mcafee and avast, it slows down your computer when that happens so uninstall mcafee because avast is much better.

0 votes

Raja Pradeep

October 9, 2012

My Laptop also came with McAfee(15 months) preinstalled. But it was the worst antivirus I have ever seen. It even deleted my counterstrike game files saying it was a trojan. So I uninstalled and started using Avast free. Avast is the best antivirus. Even the free version has tons of features, Anyway if you don’t want to uninstall McAfee you
can disable it from McAfee Security center(It can be accessed from sytem tray).

0 votes

Vishal Mishra

October 18, 2012

i think you should not run both of them on same OS at a time as they will interfere in each other’s “work”.

0 votes

Abba Jee

November 25, 2012

instead of giving you protection against viruses, malwares, you will only get slow speed, you need to uninstall one of them