McAfee firewall undeletable!!!

I'm trying to disable my firewalls (don't ask why, I know the dangers etc. no worries). What's bothering me is, that I can disable the proprietary Vista firewall but it seems as if I have a 2nd one installed as well which I've never even seen before!
I can't remember if this laptop came with Mcafee's security center because I usually just delete that sort of junk.
I've tried searching my PC for anything Mcafee related but there doesn't seem to be any trace of it at all!
The Firewall light stays green-lit even though I turn off the Vista firewall.
Ugh, halp?

I've attached a SS as evidence for the annoyance that is McAfee - the bane of akk evil.

Help would be greatly appreciated on how to remove this god-forsaken POS (piece of software).

 

Delete all registry entries for McAfee.

 

Try this

......

 

I was going to recommend that program, but it does not always work.

In many cases, you need to search your registry and delete all McAfee entries. It is the same for Comodo. On Comodo, sometimes there are stubborn keys that will not allow you to delete and you have to use a program like registrar lite to delete them.

 

Roger that. I definitely agree with deleting the McAfee registry keys as a fix, but for some editing the reg is a pretty daunting task, thus the recommended link. And, who knows, it may not even fix his issue and he may very well have to manually remove them, but its worth a try, I guess.

 

Is the integrated Windows Firewall/Windows Defender good enough for virus protection? Becuase McAfee is starting to annoy me and if I could get rid of it I would be happy

 

To be honest, no. The Windows Firewall is ok for what it does, but Windows Defender is pretty, well....lacking. I would look into NOD32 as it prevents and cleans both Virus and Spyware.

 

Give the recommended removal tool a try and if it doesn't work, then try editing the Registry. If you haven't already, delete everything McAfee from the Control Panel, too. You could also try CCleaner; it has a removal tool which seems to work well. Good luck.

NOD32 seconded. And I've had great luck with Comodo.

 

Great, I'll try it out.
I read some support page from Dell about the registry thing but I couldn't find any McAfee entries.

I'll keep you guys informed on how it goes.

 

I had exactly the same problem with an Inspiron 1525 I was setting up. It's not that the McAfee software can't be installed, its something to do with the Security Center (SC) not being updated.

Running their software removal tool or editing the registry will have no effect. I can't remember the command you have to run to reset the SC, if you can wait I'll have it tomorrow or you can access the McAfee Support Chat to get the info from an advisor.

 

OK, I've got the info I mentioned earlier, which was given to me by McAfee themselves.

You need to enable and log in as the Administrator:

Open a command prompt and type the following:

net user administrator /active:yes​

Log off and on again as the Administrator and right-click the command prompt in the Start menu and select Run As administrator. Type the following to reset and then reboot.

net stop winmgmt
cd /d %windir%\system32\wbem
ren repository repository.old
net start winmgmt​

This should now clear any bogus entries in the SC.