Windows 7: HP Protect Tools Security Manager won't uninstall prior to upgrade

I have an HP Compaq nx7400 laptop running Vista Business. I have run the Windows 7 Upgrade advisor. My system passes all tests except that I have to uninstall the HP ProtectTools Security Manager 2.00E4 security programme.
When I try I get an error message: Error (-5004: 0x8007007e)
I have already successfully uninstalled HP Credential Manager for ProtectTools.
Any help gratefully appreciated.

I found this:
Is this what you're doing when you get the error code?

Many thanks for trying, Jacee, but I have done as you suggested and get the same error message

Perhaps this Microsoft Technet forum thread may help. Specifically, the 4th post by Vivian Xing on how to manually remove HP ProtectTools Security Manager Suite.

HP ProtectTools prevents upgrade to windwows 7 - Even after unnistalling HP Protecttools

Many thanks for this. It all looked good and I edited the registry exactly as detailed, deleting the relevant keys.
However, on restarting my system, the ProtectTools programme started up, clearly showing that it had not been uninstalled.
I opened up Control Panel/Programs & Features and looked for the ProtectTools program, which was no longer showing.
Given this and thinking the the program interface may just have been an orphan, I started the Windows 7 upgrade process. Sure enough, having checked my system, it stopped the installation telling me that I must uninstall ProtectTools.
Very frustrating!
I have logged this with HP and only hope that they have a removal tool. There must be thousands of HP laptop users out there who want to upgrade to Windows 7 and can't easily do so.
Many thanks, at least, for trying to help.
Best regards
Falcodriver