Is it a good or a bad sign if a company starts to create specific uninstallers for their software programs to remove them complete from computer systems they had been installed on? A joke comes to mind that is saying that the Norton Removal Tool is the best product of the company. Kaspersky apparently has their own removal tool called KAVRemover (via Megaleecher) which can remove specific Kaspersky products from a computer system.
The removal tool is compatible with Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0\7.0\2009, Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0\7.0\2009, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 for Windows Workstations and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 for Windows Servers. If the removal tool is run on a 64-bit operating system it can only remove Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 and Kaspersky Internet Security 2009.
KAVRemover can be executed right after the download has finished. It opens up a captcha that has to be identified correctly before the removal starts. A reboot of the computer is required after the removal process has ended.
The product check can be skipped at the command line in case there are traces left on the system of a Kaspersky product that the check did not discover automatically.
The syntax would be to run kavremover9.exe and add the product that should be removed as a parameter. Here is the parameter list:
- kav6
- kav7
- kav2009
- kav2009x64
- kis6
- kis7
- kis2009
- kis2009x64
- kav6fs
- kav6wks
The command kavremover9.exe kis2009 would remove all traces of Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 from the system.
Update: The uninstaller has been updated to remove current Kaspersky products from the system as well. You can always get the latest installer at this Kaspersky Support page. You can use it to uninstall all recent Kaspersky products, including the following:
- Kaspersky Small Office Security 2 for Personal Computer / for File Server
- Kaspersky PURE / PURE R2
- Kaspersky Anti-Virus (all versions)
- Kaspersky Internet Security (all versions)
- Kaspersky Password Manager (all versions)
- AVP Tool driver
All you need to do is to run the installer to remove the programs automatically from the operating system.
A remover of this sort is also valuable in case of a clean install, as it is sometimes advised/required with major updates.
it is definitely a bad sign when av vendors create dedicated removal tools for their own software... they're supposed to be making removal tools for malware, when they're doing it for their own software it's a sign that someone is doing their job horribly wrong...
i think it's a great idea. there's so many different configurations of hardware, software and updates out there that it would be impossible for antivirus writers to make their program 100% compatible with everything. having a removal tool gets the user out of trouble when the antivirus program plays up. it's a valuable tool and i applaud the honesty of having it released.
@ kurt wismer its their responsibility to make safely user installs the program without any problems as in case of uninstall also.@martin I have written an article back ago Antivirus programs removal tools including kasperksy check here http://computersservicing.blogspot.com/2008/10/download-antivirus-programs-removal.html
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