I’ve been with McAfee by default ever since I got my first computer five years ago and it’s been more or less OK ever since. Until this week. As my subscription had run out I had to upgrade to version 7.0. But is this simple, as indeed am I? Why, of course not! The download finally went through on the fourth attempt, but then I kept getting warning messages that I wasn’t protected. When I click on the “fix” button I just get told that I have several issues to address and I can go no further. I’ve tried to delete everything McAfee-related (impossible, actually) and reinstalling the software from scratch, but to no avail. Now I’m getting a stupid message that I have an old virus detection file - in Zone Alarm, which I have the free version of and which is irrelevant to McAfee! AAAARRRGH!!! 
Modern technology, can’t live with it, awful fun to shoot. 
If you shoot it you might get hurt or hurt somebody else. If you can afford it, perhaps you can take it to a repair person like at Radio Shack. Do they have Radio Shack in the UK?
Have you contacted the McAfee support folks? That’s probably your best bet.
I had an equally frustrating time with Norton, so when we got a new PC, and it came with McAfee, I kept the McAfee. That doesn’t mean I won’t come to hate it sooner or later, but so far so good.
McAfee sucks of late. Go with AVG free. You can’t beat the price and it’s hassle free, to boot.
I’ve also had AVG free edition recommended by people I respect, after I was frustrated with NAV. Installed it several months ago and have been very happy with it. No fuss, no bother, and it seems to be doing the job.
Best wishes,
Jerry
It’s either a top-price phone line or a free chat-room type thang. Have tried the latter twice now and they don’t understand my problem, as, indeed, neither do I, and I don’t want to. AVG here I come, I s’pose.
Bring a gun, just in case. 
You’re such a helpful old bugger.
I oughta say something about going to Radio Shag at this point, but I won’t.
When you say you tried to “delete” everything McAfee-related, did you mean you tried to delete them by file by file, or did you mean you used the “uninstall” thing?
Just trying to identify files and delete them, or deleting everything in a folder, doesn’t work. Bits remain behind. You have to “uninstall” the whole thing.
Did you try uninstalling Zone Alarm?
If it makes you feel better (and it probably won’t), Norton’s is no better.
I’ve never been partial to shooting computers…I’m more of the push-'em-off-the-roof kind of guy.
“Bounce the server.” 
–James.tar.gz
I had similar problems with upgrading McAfee. Its amazing how much will fix itself by rebooting several times. Also, try launching the Security Centre and examining each part of the McAfee packages. Just reviewing this stuff enabled McAfee to clear a lot of the reported problems. Also, you will get these messages if you have not purchased/upgraded all aspects of the McAfee suite.
Having passed the upgrade hurdles, the most annoying behaviour I see is that everyday when it checks for updates, it tells me I am out of date and must go to McAfee’s web site. This is merde. They are just trying to get me to buy more feature packages. Once I learned to ignore this, I was able to reduce time spent on daily updates.
One of the other annoying things I have run into with McAfee is that it blocks one of the images on my own home page and refuses to let me see it. I have fought and forced it to confess that the image file is being blocked, but won’t tell me where is this blocking is occurring, so that I can’t clear it. Aaaarrrrrrrggggghhh!
djm
You know me, ‘happy to be of serrrrvice’.
I’d try uninstalling Zone Alarm, seeing if that makes McAfee happier, and then reinstalling ZA.
Have done this and McAfee appears to be working (I didn’t install their firewall). Now I can’t reinstall ZoneAlarm! Maybe I’ll cave in and use the McAfee firewall, which is included in my subscription anyway. Unless someone has a better idea!
You might want to try the Sygate Personal edition. I have been using it for several years without problem. I also use AVG, Avast, Spybot, AdAware and MSASCui. All of these are free.
Ron
How did you try to remove it? I just wiped it from my new laptop no problem.
I went into the Control Panel, and clicked “Add or Remove Programs”. In the
list of programs that came up was one called McAfee Uninstall Wizard. I
selected this and clicked “Remove”, and now it’s gone! AVG is installing right
now.
You’d think in this day and age that when you install an updated version of something you’ve been using already that the update would remove or overwrite redundant stuff. Not that I’d know (and why should I? I pay out the dosh, they sort me out hassle-free - hah! ).