One of the most frequently asked questions I get is how to uninstall McAfee or Norton antivirus and security products. Maybe its because trial versions of these products were preinstalled when the customer purchased the computer, or maybe you want to uninstall McAfee and install another antivirus software product.
Some computer users try to install an antivirus product and they are told to uninstall McAfee before they can proceed even though it appears McAfee is not running on the system.

Follow the instructions below to safely remove McAfee security products including their antivirus and firewall from your computer.

Removal through the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel

Most of the time, you can simply remove McAfee products through the Add/Remove Control Panel.

1) Click on Start, Click on Control Panel
2) Double-click on Add or Remove Programs
3) Find the Network Associates or McAfee product listed and click on it.
4) Click on Change/Remove
5) You’ll see a screen , Place a checkmark next to each McAfee product you wish to remove and click Remove

6) You’ll see a warning message, comfirm you want to remove

7) .The removal process will start showing each program being removed, then it will ask to restart the computer. Go ahead and reboot after the removal process is finished.

After rebooting McAfee should be removed from your system.

Some times the normal uninstall may not remove it, try the automatic uninstall instructions below to remove McAfee security products.

Removing McAfee Automatically

McAfee has an automatic removal program to remove the following software products when the normal removal methods fail. However It does not work with Windows 98 or Windows ME. The removal tool deletes all traces of the following products in Windows 2000 Pro, Windows XP Home and Professional, and Windows Vista.
• McAfee Security Center
• McAfee VirusScan
• McAfee Personal Firewall Plus
• McAfee Privacy Service
• McAfee SpamKiller
• McAfee Wireless Network Security
• McAfee SiteAdvisor
• McAfee Data Backup
• McAfee Network Manager
• McAfee Easy Network
• McAfee AntiSpyware
Download the McAfee Removal Tool and run it to remove the above programs.
1. Use the following link to download the MCPR removal tool

http://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/MCPR.exe

2. Click Save and save the file to your desktop
3. Close all McAfee Application windows you may have open, and double-click on MCPR.exe to start the removal tool. Windows Vista users will have to right-click on the file and select “Run as Administrator”
4. After the removal tool finishes, you should be prompted to restart your computer.
5. Once the computer restarts, your McAfee product should be uninstalled.
6. If for any reason there appears a red X during the uninstall, go to the following location for more advanced uninstall instructions involving the registry.

http://tools.mcafeehelp.com/doc.php?siteid=1&docid=419397

Extra Optional Steps
1. Open My Computer, double-click on Drive C
2. Double-click on Program Files
3. Look for any McAfee product folders that remain. Right-click on them and choose Delete
4. Close My Computer and other folders

And for those with the same problem with other Antivirus Programs try the following Removal Instructions;

Uninstall Norton
Uninstall McAfee
Uninstall Avast
Uninstall AVG
Uninstall AntiVir
Uninstall Panda

If you are a computer tech then this will me awesome for you, as getting the model and serial number can be the most tedious part of the job; whatever the reason you lost your serial number like laptop stickers rubbed off very quickly and manufacturer’s website has not been helpful then the commands am giving you are the best because within a few seconds you will know your serial and model number again.
Desktops and Laptops comes with a serial number (or service tag) and a model name. If you ever loose this information, then you can use MS DOS commands to retrieve the information
To retrieve serial number of the computer run the following command
wmic bios get serialnumber
To retrieve model name of the computer run the following command
wmic csproduct get name
I hope the commands do for you as we can only find drivers based on the serial number.
All you have to do is go to Start > Run and then type cmd and click Open. After doing this then the information they provided worked.
wmic bios get serialnumber
wmic csproduct get name

Since defragging the disk won’t do much to improve Windows XP performance, here are 23 suggestions that will. Each can enhance the performance and reliability of your customers’ PCs. Best of all; most of them will cost you nothing.
1.) To decrease a system’s boot time and increase system performance uses the money you save by not buying defragmentation software — the built-in Windows defragmenter works just fine — and instead equip the computer with an Ultra-133 or Serial ATA hard drive with 8-MB cache buffer.

2.) If a PC has less than 512 MB of RAM, add more memory. This is a relatively inexpensive and easy upgrade that can dramatically improve system performance.

3.) Ensure that Windows XP is utilizing the NTFS file system. If you’re not sure, here’s how to check: First, double-click the My Computer icon, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties. Next, examine the File System type; if it says FAT32, then back-up any important data. Next, click Start; click Run, type CMD, and then click OK. At the prompt, type CONVERT C: /FS: NTFS and press the Enter key. This process may take a while; it’s important that the computer be uninterrupted and virus-free. The file system used by the bootable drive will be either FAT32 or NTFS. I highly recommend NTFS for its superior security, reliability, and efficiency with larger disk drives.

4.) Disable file indexing. The indexing service extracts information from documents and other files on the hard drive and creates a “searchable keyword index.” As you can imagine, this process can be quite taxing on any system.

The idea is that the user can search for a word, phrase, or property inside a document, should they have hundreds or thousands of documents and not know the file name of the document they want. Windows XP’s built-in search functionality can still perform these kinds of searches without the Indexing service. It just takes longer. The OS has to open each file at the time of the request to help find what the user is looking for.

Most people never need this feature of search. Those who do are typically in a large corporate environment where thousands of documents are located on at least one server. But if you’re a typical system builder, most of your clients are small and medium businesses. And if your clients have no need for this search feature, I recommend disabling it.

Here’s how: First, double-click the My Computer icon. Next, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties. Uncheck “Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching.” Next, apply changes to “C: subfolders and files,” and click OK. If a warning or error message appears (such as “Access is denied”), click the Ignore All button.

5.) Update the PC’s video and motherboard chipset drivers. Also, update and configure the BIOS. For more information on how to configure your BIOS properly, see this article on my site.

6.) Empty the Windows Prefetch folder every three months or so. Windows XP can “prefetch” portions of data and applications that are used frequently. This makes processes appear to load faster when called upon by the user. That’s fine. But over time, the prefetch folder may become overloaded with references to files and applications no longer in use. When that happens, Windows XP is wasting time, and slowing system performance, by pre-loading them. Nothing critical is in this folder, and the entire contents are safe to delete.

7.) Once a month, run a disk cleanup. Here’s how: Double-click the My Computer icon. Then right-click on the C: drive and select Properties. Click the Disk Cleanup button — it’s just to the right of the Capacity pie graph — and delete all temporary files.

8.) In your Device Manager, double-click on the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers device, and ensure that DMA is enabled for each drive you have connected to the Primary and Secondary controller. Do this by double-clicking on Primary IDE Channel. Then click the Advanced Settings tab. Ensure the Transfer Mode is set to “DMA if available” for both Device 0 and Device 1. Then repeat this process with the Secondary IDE Channel.

9.) Upgrade the cabling. As hard-drive technology improves, the cabling requirements to achieve these performance boosts have become more stringent. Be sure to use 80-wire Ultra-133 cables on all of your IDE devices with the connectors properly assigned to the matching Master/Slave/Motherboard sockets. A single device must be at the end of the cable; connecting a single drive to the middle connector on a ribbon cable will cause signaling problems. With Ultra DMA hard drives, these signaling problems will prevent the drive from performing at its maximum potential. Also, because these cables inherently support “cable select,” the location of each drive on the cable is important. For these reasons, the cable is designed so drive positioning is explicitly clear.

10.) Remove all spyware from the computer. Use free programs such as AdAware by Lavasoft or SpyBot Search & Destroy. Once these programs are installed, be sure to check for and download any updates before starting your search. Anything either program finds can be safely removed. Any free software that requires spyware to run will no longer function once the spyware portion has been removed; if your customer really wants the program even though it contains spyware, simply reinstall it. For more information on removing Spyware visit this Web Pro News page.

11.) Remove any unnecessary programs and/or items from Windows Startup routine using the MSCONFIG utility. Here’s how: First, click Start, click Run, type MSCONFIG, and click OK. Click the StartUp tab, and then uncheck any items you don’t want to start when Windows starts. Unsure what some items are? Visit the WinTasks Process Library. It contains known system processes, applications, as well as spyware references and explanations. Or quickly identify them by searching for the filenames using Google or another Web search engine.

12.) Remove any unnecessary or unused programs from the Add/Remove Programs section of the Control Panel.

13.) Turn off any and all unnecessary animations, and disable active desktop. In fact, for optimal performance, turn off all animations. Windows XP offers many different settings in this area. Here’s how to do it: First click on the System icon in the Control Panel. Next, click on the advanced tab. Select the Settings button located under Performance. Feel free to play around with the options offered here, as nothing you can change will alter the reliability of the computer — only its responsiveness.

14.) If your customer is an advanced user who is comfortable editing their registry, try some of the performance registry tweaks offered at Tweak XP.

15.) Visit Microsoft’s Windows update site regularly, and download all updates labeled Critical. Download any optional updates at your discretion.

16.) Update the customer’s anti-virus software on a weekly, even daily, basis. Make sure they have only one anti-virus software package installed. Mixing anti-virus software is a sure way to spell disaster for performance and reliability.

17.) Make sure the customer has fewer than 500 type fonts installed on their computer. The more fonts they have, the slower the system will become. While Windows XP handles fonts much more efficiently than did the previous versions of Windows, too many fonts — that is, anything over 500 — will noticeably tax the system.

18.) Do not partition the hard drive. Windows XP’s NTFS file system runs more efficiently on one large partition. The data is no safer on a separate partition, and a reformat is never necessary to reinstall an operating system. The same excuses people offer for using partitions apply to using a folder instead. For example, instead of putting all your data on the D: drive, put it in a folder called “D drive.” You’ll achieve the same organizational benefits that a separate partition offers, but without the degradation in system performance. Also, your free space won’t be limited by the size of the partition; instead, it will be limited by the size of the entire hard drive. This means you won’t need to resize any partitions, ever. That task can be time-consuming and also can result in lost data.

19.) Check the system’s RAM to ensure it is operating properly. I recommend using a free program called MemTest86. The download will make a bootable CD or diskette (your choice), which will run 10 extensive tests on the PC’s memory automatically after you boot to the disk you created. Allow all tests to run until at least three passes of the 10 tests are completed. If the program encounters any errors, turn off and unplug the computer, remove a stick of memory (assuming you have more than one), and run the test again. Remember, bad memory cannot be repaired, but only replaced.

20.) If the PC has a CD or DVD recorder, check the drive manufacturer’s Web site for updated firmware. In some cases you’ll be able to upgrade the recorder to a faster speed. Best of all, it’s free.

21.) Disable unnecessary services. Windows XP loads a lot of services that your customer most likely does not need. To determine which services you can disable for your client, visit the Black Viper site for Windows XP configurations.

22.) If you’re sick of a single Windows Explorer window crashing and then taking the rest of your OS down with it, then follow this tip: open My Computer, click on Tools, then Folder Options. Now click on the View tab. Scroll down to “Launch folder windows in a separate process,” and enable this option. You’ll have to reboot your machine for this option to take effect.

23.) At least once a year, open the computer’s cases and blow out all the dust and debris. While you’re in there, check that all the fans are turning properly. Also inspect the motherboard capacitors for bulging or leaks. For more information on this leaking-capacitor phenomena, you can read numerous articles on my site.

This topic was prompted by a problem that one of our clients was facing. He ran into a problem trying to get his computer to shut down:

He was running Windows XP Professional and it absolutely refused to shut down. Every time he tried to shut down it could go through the motions, but when it got to the point to turn off the machine, the BIOS screen could come up and the machine reboots.

Annoying; well let’s look at the causes before we tell you what worked for our Client. There are three basic sources of automatic reboot problems:

· Recovery settings

· Software incompatibilities, including driver issues

· BIOS problems

Recovery Settings

One of the things that is quite different about Windows XP compared to Windows 9x (9x is shorthand for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me in all their various versions), is that one can control how it responds to certain critical errors—those that cause the infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). In Windows XP, the default setting is for the computer to reboot automatically when a fatal error occurs. If that fatal error only occurs when you’re shutting down, the system reboots automatically.

If you haven’t changed any of the system failure settings, you should be able to see the error by looking in the Event Log. But a better long-term solution is to turn off the automatic reboot so you can actually see the error when it happens—chances are it will tell you enough about itself to let you troubleshoot further. To change the recovery settings to disable automatic rebooting:

· Right-click My Computer and then click Properties.

· Click the Advanced tab.

· Under Startup and Recovery, click Settings to open the Startup and Recovery dialog box.

· Clear the Automatically restart check box, and click OK the necessary number of times.

· Restart your computer for the settings to take effect

Now when you go to shut down and a fatal error occurs, you’ll at least see it and it won’t cause an automatic reboot. You still have to sort out what’s causing the problem, and that gets us to the next cause.

Software Incompatibility

Most of the time a fatal error or BSOD is a software or driver problem, and troubleshooting these can be tricky. The mechanism for troubleshooting, however, is pretty much the same for any problem on a PC. The first thing to look at is what’s changed—what new software program or drivers have you added, usually just before the problem started. This sounds easy and it often is, but if it’s something you’ve lived with for a while, you’ll often have no idea what the proximate cause is. When you do, it’s a lot easier. When you don’t, you need to do a bit of research to find out if there is a specific cause for the particular error message you’re getting (when you have one) or a known issue with certain programs or drivers that causes the behavior you’re seeing.

Often someone else has had a similar problem and will offer a solution. And it’s always a good idea to check for updates to any of your critical hardware drivers on the manufacturer’s Web site, although windows update helps keep you up to date.

BIOS Problems

Finally, the last and often trickiest to troubleshoot source of reboot problems: your computer’s BIOS. If there is a problem in your BIOS, or sometimes even in the firmware for one of the other pieces of hardware installed in your machine, it could cause an instability and lead to one of those automatic restarts that we talked about in the first section. Especially if the problem is in the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) portion. The good news is that these problems are much less common than they used to be in the bad old days. But it never hurts to check with your computer manufacturer to see if there’s an updated BIOS available.

This step-by-step article describes how to troubleshoot “Stop 0×0000007B” error…

This step-by-step article describes how to troubleshoot “Stop 0×0000007B” error messages in Windows XP. This article describes issues that can cause this Stop error including boot sector viruses and device driver issues or hardware issues. If you cannot resolve the problem after you review these issues, use the general troubleshooting steps that appear at the end of the article.

This article is intended for advanced computer users. If you are not comfortable with advanced troubleshooting, you might want to ask someone for help or contact support.

When you start your computer, you may receive one of the following error message.

When you start your computer, you may receive one of the following error messages:

• STOP: 0×0000007B (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4)
  INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE
• Setup has encountered a fatal error that prevents it from continuing.Contact your product support representative for assistance. The following status will assist them in diagnosing the problem.

  (0×4, 0×1, 0, 0)

  Setup cannot continue. Power down or reboot your computer now.

You may also receive a “Stop 0×0000007B” error message during Windows XP Setup when the Setup program restarts during the installation process. When you receive a Stop error while the Setup program is running, you receive the second error message. To troubleshoot this issue, read the following four sections to determine if any one of the issues applies to you. If none of the issues apply to you, use the following general troubleshooting steps at the end of the article.

Boot-Sector Viruses

You may receive a “Stop 0×0000007B” error message if your computer is infected with a boot-sector virus. If the problem is intermittent and you can start Windows, check your computer for viruses. If you find a virus, also check any floppy disks for viruses before you use them again.

Note You may have to use more than one brand of virus-detection software to detect and remove various viruses.

Important If your computer has been infected, it may be open to additional forms of attack. We recommend that you rebuild infected Internet-facing servers.
If a virus has infected your Windows XP-based computer and a virus-detection program cannot remove the virus and repair the system, you must repartition and format your hard disk and reinstall Windows XP. For additional information about partitioning and formatting a hard disk with Windows XP

Device Driver Issues

You may receive a “Stop 0×0000007B” error message in the following scenarios:

• A device driver that the computer boot controller needs is not configured to start during the startup process.
• A device driver that the computer boot controller needs is corrupted.
• Information in the Windows XP registry (information related to how the device drivers load during startup) is corrupted.

Windows XP requires a miniport driver to communicate with the hard disk controller that is used to start your computer. If Windows XP does not supply a device driver for your controller or if Windows XP is using a corrupted or incompatible driver, you must replace the driver with a valid copy that is compatible with your controller and Windows XP.

During the first phase of the Windows XP installation, Setup displays the following message at the bottom of the screen:

Press F6 if you have to install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver.

Press F6 and then follow the instructions to install a mass-storage device driver from your Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM).

To determine if your hard disk controller is compatible with Windows XP and to obtain information about drivers that are included on the Windows XP CD-ROM or that are available for download, see the latest Windows XP Hardware Compatibility List (HCL).

If your hard disk controller is not listed on the HCL, contact the manufacturer of your computer, system board, or hard disk controller for information about the availability of a driver. Microsoft does not guarantee that a resolution is available for non-HCL equipment.

If the System hive in the Windows XP registry is corrupted, Windows XP may not be able to load the miniport device driver that the boot controller requires. To resolve this issue, restore a registry backup.

Hardware Issues

You may receive a “Stop 0×0000007B” error message if there is a resource conflict between the boot controller and another controller or between SCSI devices. You may also receive this Stop error message if drive translation is not being performed or if drive translation was changed. To troubleshoot this issue:

1. If an IRQ or I/O port address conflict exists between the boot controller and another controller, Windows XP either stops responding (hangs) or displays a “Stop 0×0000007B” error message. If you recently added new hardware, remove the new hardware or reconfigure it so that it does not conflict with the resources of any other installed controllers.
2. If you are using a SCSI hard disk, check the SCSI chain for correct termination. Remove any unused SCSI devices or make sure that each SCSI ID is unique.

Make sure that drive translation is turned on (if it is required) and that it has not been changed. For example, if you recently switched controllers, this issue may occur.

Other Issues

Other potential causes of a “Stop 0×0000007B” error message include:

• The boot volume is corrupted and cannot be initiated by Windows XP. If the file system is corrupted and if Windows XP cannot initiate the boot volume during the startup process, either move the drive to another computer that is running Windows XP and run the chkdsk command on that drive or try to create a parallel installation of Windows XP on the drive (in a separate folder). The Windows XP Setup program checks the integrity of the volume before it copies files, and it may fix some problems in the process.
• You are installing Windows XP on a mirrored boot partition that was created by Microsoft Windows NT 4.0. Windows XP does not support Windows NT 4.0 Ftdisk volume sets. If you are running Microsoft Windows 2000, you must convert all Ftdisk volume sets to dynamic volumes before you upgrade to Windows XP. If you are running Windows NT 4.0, break any mirrors and back up all the data on the stripe, the RAID5, or the extended volume sets before you upgrade to Windows XP. Ftdisk sets might not be accessible after the upgrade.

General Troubleshooting

If none of the issues that have been described in this article apply to you, use the following general troubleshooting steps:

1. If you receive one of these error messages while you are installing Windows XP, update the computer BIOS or obtain Windows XP drivers for your hard disk controller (from the manufacturer of your computer, system board, or hard disk controller), or do both. For information about how to update your computer’s BIOS or obtain Windows XP drivers, contact your computer manufacturer.

Use the Last Known Good Configuration feature. This may resolve the problem if you recently installed an incompatible device driver for your boot controller.

Use the Repair option with Windows XP Setup

Restore a registry backup.

If you find the normal way of shutting down your computer boring and time consuming then this article is for use. After following the steps below you will have a shorter way to shut down your computer.

Anywhere on the desktop rick click n choose new shortcut….a create shortcut wizard will appear…in the location bar copy and paste this >> %windir%\system32\shutdown.exe -s -t 0 …click on next..Name the shortcut like shortcut.exe…right click on the newly created shortcut and go to its properties…in the shortcut key field..set the key combination…like press ctrl+alt+end and click ok…the shortcut for the shutdown.exe is created!!! now every time you will press ctrl+alt+end your computer will be turned off!!

Today a client friend of mine walked in to my office that his computer kept restarting after he had returned from his trip..after resetting his machine to stop auto restarting..loo…the beknown blue screen of death showed up with this error..showing STOP: c000021a {Fatal System     Error} The Windows Logon Process system process terminated unexpectedly     with a status of 0xc0000139 (0×00000000 0×0000000) The system has been     shutdown.\This is error occurs when either Winlogon.exe or     Csrss.exe fails. Usually due to: Mismatched system files have been installed. A Service Pack installation has failed. A backup program that is used to restore a hard disk did     not correctly restore files that may have been in use. An incompatible third-party program has been installed.

Solution. The solution microsoft gives for this is really too technical, thats why my client brought it to me…however, try to boot from the last known best configuration or if you have a bootable xp CD, perform a repair of the operating system at the second setup screen.. That fixed my problem..

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;156669