Uninstalling Vipre

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I used vipre until today, when my licence expired. The plan is to uninstall it and go with MSE. However, vipre no longer appears in the uninstall programs list. It did until the licence expired. I’ve been on a chat session with GFI for over an hour. They have no solution. They seem to think that the only way will be to install their internet security program then uninstall it.

Has anyone here run into this and fixed it?

OS is Windows 7 64 bit.

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Sounds like GFI/Sunbelt were being deliberately unhelpful there. (I think removing the uninstall when the license expires is ludicrous and has certainly put me off their products.)

There are some manual instructions here: How to Remove the Sunbelt Virus Program

And Sunbelt Software have in the past provided cleanup utilities for VIPRE:

Antivirus removal tools

Uninstallers (removal tools) for common antivirus software

Bruce

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You could also try the free OPSWAT AppRemover which can apparently uninstall VIPRE 5.x on Win 7 64-bit.

Bruce

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Thanks much, Bruce. The sunbelt links were not helpful because they depended on being able to see vipre in the add/remove programs window. I ended up installing sunbelt’s internet security app, which replaces vipre on installation, the uninstalling it immediately.

As for gfi/sunbelt being unhelpful, you are being to kind. After almost 2 hours in chat, the final advice that I received was to rename, then delete the vipre folder on my C: drive. That would solve everything, I was told. When I suggested that was not the way to uninstall software, and that would leave all their junk in my registry, I was told that I was wrong, and that simply be deleting the vipre folder, the registry would be cleaned – by magic, I guess. I then asked for the problem to be escalated to the next level of tech support. The tech person would not do that, nor tell me how to do that.

I was a big proponent of vipre even before it was called vipre. Now, I’m glad that I did not pay to renew my subscription.

Thanks again for your advice. I’ve downloaded the app remover for future use.

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It is always nice to hear about negative results as well as positive results. We can plan and recommend accordingly. I wonder if Viper has a feedback area for you to let them know just what you think of their very valuable support staff.

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They do not seem to have a feedback area, Ted. Today, I received an email from someone identifying himself as a “technical e-support team leader”. He apologized for my difficulties and advised me to, first, copy the Vipre installation logs into an email reply to him, then second, to run MS Fixit to uninstall Vipre. Since I had managed to uninstall Vipre already, there was nothing to be gained by following his advice. I wrote him back, telling him that.”

I find it remarkable that GFI/Sunbelt does not offer any manual way of getting rid of Vipre when/if the normal uninstall processes fail. I find it disturbing that their software seems to be set up to remove itself from the add/remove programs menu of windows when the licence expires. I had a licence allowing me multiple installations. On two of those, the add/remove item disappeared when the licence expired. On the third, it did not. Upon further examination, on the two that it did disappear, we had clicked the “renew” link, then closed it without renewing. On the one that was not affected, we did not click the link. Coincidence?

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I have NEVER had software do this before, EVER.

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I have used Vipre for two or three years. It started quite well, being light and effective. At each new release, however, the program got slower and clearly having a greater impact in performance. The last version is the worst. In an older computer, that runs Vista fine, just opening the interface took minutes, an experience repeated on my laptop, although a bit faster than in the Vista running laptop. I ended up removing Vipre, but my license is still active (have 10 months left), so I did not have any uninstall difficulties.

This type of experience with Sunbelt is not unique. I had user another piece of software from them before, that made quite a similar evolution to Vipre. Started quite well and just got worse at each update and ended up being removed.

I wasn’t impressed with their tech support, either. Had two problems, one unanswered, another with long time to obtain a working solution.

If the removal of the uninstall option was the consequence of the license expiration, I find that nothing but outrageous. Anyone who treats a customer like that, surely deserves to lose that customer.

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Try revo uninstaller some times you can choose force uninstall even if no uninstaller file present then looks for any left over registry and file remnants to clear out

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Here is a link to the latest version of the VIPRE cleaner utility:

http://sunbelt-software.com/support/vc/VClean.exe

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Thanks for posting the link. I looked and searched on their site and didn’t find it. I don’t need it now, but others might. It’s interesting that none of the 3 tech people that I dealt with, including the “e-support team leader” mentionned this cleaner at all. I think that says something about the competence of their tech support, too.

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