Endpoint Protection

My company distributes SEP to be used on employees' home machines (primarily to avoid employees bringing viruses to the network from unmanaged machines). My copy of SEP 12.1.5 has been behaving erratically for several weeks. I would like to uninstall it and reinstall afresh.

This is apparently impossible. Using Control Panel/Uninstall always fails, generally hanging on the "gathering information" screen. "Repair" is equally useless.

Using the msiexec uninstall method does nothing at all.

I have seen references to removing the program manually — which appeared to involve about 50 steps and rooting around in the registry with hoe and tweezers, along with an application called "Cleanwipe" which doesn't appear to actually be available. Unsurprisingly, I'm reluctant to try that method.

Surely there is a sane way to uninstall this program?

You can use cleanwipe:

How to obtain the Cleanwipe utility

Or try the manual uninstall

Uninstall Symantec Endpoint Protection

Sadly, both answers are nonstarters.

1. Cleanwipe is apparently available only from physical media which — since I used the install package distributed by my company and not any sort of physical media — is not available to me. For that matter, since my company has over 50,000 employees and the IT department is spread out over 6 continents, it's unlikely that I could discover who in my company has or ever had that media.

2. Meanwhile, the manual uninstall explicitly directs the user to use Cleanwipe first!

Catch-22 was a great book, but it's not much fun when you're talking about software.

Clicking thru a few links I finally found the manual uninstall based on OS type, not sure what yours is but the here they are:

• Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 client - Windows XP and Windows 2003 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems
• Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 client - Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 2008 32 and 64-bit operating systems

Hello,

Assuming you have administrative rights.

Try removing SEP client using msiexec command. You need to create a small batch file with the help of following article.

To uninstall the Symantec Endpoint client using comand line 12.x:

1. Log on the system with administrator rights.
2. Find the Symantec Endpoint Protection uninstallation product key:
3. Click Start, then Run.
4. Type regedit to open the Windows reistry editor.
5. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\
6. Browse the Uninstall sub keys in the left-hand pane, check the values in the right-hand pane to find a value for DisplayName that is Symantec Endpoint Protection.
7. Copy the uninstallation key.
   For example the key for Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1.671.4971 is A3AEEA68-AC93-4F6F-8D2D-78BBF7E422B8.
8. Click Start, then Run.
9. Type cmd to open the Windows command prompt.
10. At the Windows command prompt type:
    msiexec /X {product uninstall key}
    For Example: msiexec.exe /x {A3AEEA68-AC93-4F6F-8D2D-78BBF7E422B8} /passive

    To generate a detailed uninstall log type:
    msiexec /X {product uninstall key} /I*v! log file path

• Example: msiexec /x {A3AEEA68-AC93-4F6F-8D2D-78BBF7E422B8} /lv!* c:\uninstallSEP.txt

Note: If the MSI uninstall has stopped responding:

1. Click Start, then Run.
2. Type taskmgr
3. Click the Processes tab.
4. Click End Process for all of the running windows installer processes by: Right-clicking onmsiexec.exe then clicking End Process.
5. Repeat this task for each instance of "msiexec.exe" listed.

Refer this article:

How to uninstall the Symantec Endpoint Protection Client using the Microsoft Installer (MSI) command line interface.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH102470

SEPprep competitive product uninstall tool

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH148513

Also take a glance at these 3 links and let me know if this answers your question.

http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/uninstalling-sep-remotely

http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/remote-uninstallation

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/uninstall-client-remotely

Hope that helps!!