Windows 7 - Uninstalling Symantec

I have symantec endpoint protection 11 and I am unhappy with it. When I tried uninstalling it from add/remove programs, it did not work and I manually deleted the files and registry entries according to the instructions on the Symantec Page. When I tried installing Norton 360, it told me that I had to first unistall symantec or norton as it was detected on my computer. I went and got Symantec Cleanwipe which ran successfully. When I tried to install Norton again, it still displayed the same message. I have tried running cleanwipe in safe mode as well as deleting everything in the registry with the phrase symantec.

Any help would be appreciated :P

|MG| Norton Removal Tool 2012.0.0.19 Download

Norton Removal Tool does a reasonable job of uninstalling Symantec. But it still leaves many orphans behind.

When I uninstalled Symantec I restored the image immediately prior to the installing of Symantec and then reinstalled the few programs that had disappeared along with Symantec due to image restoration.

Make a System Restore Backup - Control Panel - System - Advanced System Settings - Click System Protection and click Create.. Download Everything and search for "Norton" or "Symantec" and delete them all.

Then Backup Registry and search for "Norton" or "Symantec" by pressing CTRL+F. Delete all the Norton Keys it finds.

In addition to the above
Agent Ransack /File locator Lite (excellent general Search program) run elevated and search for remnant files/folders.

Plus CCleaner Registry tool may pick up unwanted Norton/Semantec registry entries. Use with care.

Another thing to watch for is slow boots after removing Norton products. I ran the removal tool 3 times on my Vista machine. I was getting boots over 2 minutes. I turned on boot logging. Turned out the system was timing out on driver loads for Norton that were no longer on the drive. Waiting for drivers that had been removed.

If you see any driver load fails in the boot log that weren't successfully loaded on another attempt, then search the registry to see where they are being loaded, or try CCleaner to see if it gets them. Once I deleted those driver loads it cut down my boot time by about a third.

Once again, backup Registry. CCleaner has that option built in.

You could also try this:
Download Windows Installer CleanUp Utility 2.5.0.1 Free - Remove Windows Installer configuration information on failed installs - Softpedia

Norton removal tool told me that it detected symantec antivirus 9 or later and that it had to be first removed before I could procede. The thing is, symantec is no longer on my pc. I deleted the files and the registry keys as well as running Cleanwipe twice

Instead of struggling trying to remove the orphans left behind by the Norton Removal Tool, isn't it much simpler to restore the image that had been created immediately before the installation of Norton and then re-install the few programs that may have also disappeared with Norton. The one thing this struggle surely does is to provide training to the user on handling of the Registry and assorted other cleaning programs like CCleaner.

I hardly know of a program that mucks up the Registry as much as Norton does. The nearest to it is perhaps IncrediMail.

Even worse is McAfee , a lady had a computer with that AV and a virus - It took longer to remove Mcafee then to remove the virus ...