Josh Wieder

McAfee's suite of antivirus services have come pre-installed on Windows computers for a long time. I don't use the product, but I frequently have to use computers that have had Windows installed with McAffee pre-bundled somehow. I've often struggled to completely remove all of the components of their software packages. I recently picked up a new laptop with Windows 8.1 - my first time using this version of Windows for a laptop. I was dismayed to find McAffee preinstalled. I will say this for them - they have gotten better since the last time I went through this many years ago. Better, as in uninstalling using the utility provided by McAfee did not break Windows. The uninstaller still left bits of McAffee's software behind, though. Specifically, what gets left behind is the McAfee Update Manager; a utility designed to download applications from the McAfee corporate servers and install those applications on your computer with minimal human intervention. Registry...

Have you encountered error 0x84B30002 when uninstalling MSSQL 2008 R2, preventing the uninstall from proceeding? I have. So far I have only encountered the issue with Express Edition, although rumor has it that the error can occur with other editions as well. The error message will be displayed in a pop-up as well as the summary.txt log file in the installation directory. Here is how to fix it: Launch the registry editor by typing regedit in the Run bar in the start menu. Navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\ After expanding uninstall, you will need to locate each key related to the SQL instance you are attempting to remove - if there is only one instance on the server, locate each key with the word SQL in the DisplayName field.  Within each key, locate the GUID. It will look something like this:  234A1B2C-12AB-1AB2-B1C2-A12B345678C1   and be typically contained in either the...