Tonight I tried to uninstall McAfee Privacy Service from my Internet Security Suite 2006 8.0 using the add/remove programs. It looked like it was working (with a green progress bar) until it got near the end then it just froze my PC completely. Eventually I had no choice but to hard reboot it.
After this my PC won't boot up into normal windows, it gets as far as the desktop background but no taskbar or anything. It will boot into safe mode but the internet connection doesnt work, the wireless just says limited/no connectivity. After this it errored when trying to uninstall and also when trying to reinstall from CD.
I had 2 text chat conversations with McAfee people and neither has helped me.
The first sent me some clean up tool to this laptop I am using. I copied it across to the affected PC and ran it. Although it got to the end it frequently reported that it couldnt remove all programs as it didnt have the right permissions (I tried this logged in as me and also as admin). Afterwards I tried to reinstall from CD but it still errored.
I cant see any McAfee applications on the PC now but it is still broken, will not boot in normal windows.
They sent me some very complicated DOS based manual process to try but I dont get the command lines they mention (it doesnt do this "The last line of text in the window starts with C:\\WINDOWS> (followed by a blinking cursor). Type CD\\"). My command line in DOS isnt C:\\WINDOWS at all and it doesnt recognise the CD\\ command.
I actually found two custom "removal" programs McAfee sent me some 18 months ago when I had a similar problem (I had completely forgot it did this to me once before else I wouldnt have tried the uninstall in the first place). I ran them and they ran a load of DOS lines removing things, unfortunately these havent worked either.
I am basically stuck. My PC doesnt work at all now
I have emailed McAfee but I dont hold out much hope. I would reformat my PC but it has Nvidia Raid/Sata or something and it from what I have looked up online it seems very complicated (for me at least)
Help?