Question: A medical site we use and need was updated about a week ago. Tacked onto the download was McAfee Security Scan Plus. No idea why. I don’t like McAfee products because they tend to use an extraordinary amount of resources. I tried to uninstall it, and a marketing-oriented popup came up, with no obvious way to bypass it and continue the uninstall. A subsequent message said I need administrator privileges to continue. I am the only user and as far as I can tell I have full admin privileges. I contacted McAfee via chat and eventually was given a link to an executable that was supposed to get rid of all McAfee products. Some finally disappeared, but MSSP remains. File Explorer listed a range of McAfee files, but moving them to Recycle seemed to only copy files, not delete them. Task Manager only ended the task, but once MSSP actually popped up with an assumed problem, offering a fix; I X’d it into temporary oblivion. In the past, I have been able to uninstall McAfee products with little problem, but this program seems indestructible. I may, as my schedule allows, try to go back to McAfee and complain again. For now, this stumps me.
– Morris F.
Navarre, Florida
Answer: I have similar feelings about McAfee as you, Morris. Now, I don’t like to bash a legitimate product, especially not here in the column, but too many times I’ve seen McAfee engage in practices that I consider highly questionable. These include tacking their product onto downloads of other products, both with and without warning the user. Perhaps even worse, even after a purposeful uninstall, the pieces of McAfee software are found hanging around on the computer, using up resources and pushing ads when you least expect it. These behaviors are more what I expect from malware, not from a product that is supposed to scan and eliminate viruses and malware. It turned me off to McAfee products a long time.
I know you said you tried the so-called McAfee Product Removal Tool, which claims to remove all vestiges of McAfee software, but I feel like other people who have McAfee issues could benefit from hearing a little about it, so pardon me while I cover the topic for their sake. I’ve actually covered this in the column before, as far back as 2012. To use the tool, start by entering TinyURL.com/IGTM-0902 into your browser’s address bar. A file named MCPR.exe will automatically download, and is ready to run as-is. Double-click it and follow all the onscreen prompts. Windows will ask you a couple of “Are you sure you want to do this?” kind of questions, to which you can safely answer “Yes.” Allow it to do its thing, and it will (at least it’s supposed to) sweep your system clean of all the pieces of software that McAfee somehow feels justified leaving behind even though you said “uninstall.”
Now, Morris, back to you. I don’t know of any reason why the MCPR would need to run in Administrator mode for you, but I can tell you that just because you are the only user on the machine doesn’t mean your account has administrator privileges. In fact, Microsoft specifically recommends against running regular user account accounts as administrator, and back in the days of Windows 8 they took action to protect clueless users who insist on running as an administrator when they should be running as a regular user. To that end, a so-called administrator account is more like “administrator capable” and you need to explicitly flip a process into administrator mode. In the case of the MCPR file discussed earlier, you’ll want to right-click the file and select “Run as Administrator” from the context menu. Depending on how your account is configured, you may not get that selection on the menu, or you may need to provide the account credentials if it is.
The other issues you have with McAfee’s product will, I’m confident, disappear once you finally get all the remaining pieces of McAfee’s file persistence off your system. Don’t let that stop you from complaining directly to McAfee again. In this Geek’s opinion, the more times they hear how their questionable practices are causing problems for people, the better the odds that they will abandon these ways and choose a more professional, business-like demeanor.
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