I was trying to install Oracle 11g client on to a WinXP box but Symantec Antivirus wouldn’t let me because it thought it was infected with over 800 viruses. Same file was marked clean on another box. So, I picked several of the viruses it said was infected with and looked for any evidence of them on the WinXP box. No dice. This led me to believe that Symantec Antivirus itself was somehow mucked up.
When I tried to uninstall Symantec Antivirus, it asked for a password. When I put in the correct password, it refused it. So how to uninstall it with a messed up password? Easy..
Open up regedit (as an administrator) and change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\INTEL\LANDesk\VirusProtect6\CurrentVersion\AdministratorOnly\Security\UseVPUninstallPassword to “0” (zero).
I was able to uninstall and reinstall Symantec Antivirus.
