While rummaging in the SevenForums crawl space I came across this (almost) 5 year old thread:
AV Uninstallers
I've been using Control Panel or All Programs to uninstall so am curious, does this old info still apply?
Are individual tools really necessary?
Hi ,
yes it is best to use the uninstaller if they provide one. it should get everything from the registry that all programs dont do.
Don't know if it needs updating or not. This one is good and regularly updated:
List of anti-malware product removal tools - Microsoft Community
I've seen many examples where uninstalls of AVs leave things behind. For example a firewall driver in the network connection properties leading to all kinds of strange problems. And not easy to discover either.
They can even be useful if something's gone wrong with the AV so it doesn't work properly and it needs a clean re-install.
Yes, unistallers often do not adequately remove AV products. Uninstallers often do no receive the attention from developers that they warrant, in some cases being little more than an afterthought. Developers and the companies that employ them often find it difficult to understand why anyone would want to uninstall their product in favor of a competitors. It is often thought that the uninstaller will primarily be used prior to a reinstall of the product, possibly to resolve some kind of problem. The uninstaller is designed with this in mind. As a convenience to the user significant portions of the program and registry settings are often left behind.
And even a well designed uninstaller may be unable to completely remove a program in unusual situations.
Most good AV producers do create specialized uninstallers or instructions how this can be done when needed.
Quote