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I installed Symantec Antivirus on my Mac (mid-2009 MacBook Pro) running Snow Leopard (10.6.2) via a work-provided software gizmo - along with some other software. I've had nothing but trouble since the installers ran into some problem while unpacking Firefox 3.5.7, which I also tried to install via the same work-provided software at the same time. I removed the Symantec software folders because it was not clear that anything had worked, but the Symantec scanner still managed to start up after a reboot - and still shows up in System Preferences.
I went to the Symantec site via a Google search and found a page about removing Symantec Antivirus from the Mac. I downloaded the uninstaller '.sit' file, and I've run it, but it can't find the Symantec software on the disk. Neither can I - it isn't in /Applications or /Applications/Utilities that I can see. But the O/S can - it runs the program.
- Any ideas on how to actually get rid of it?
- Do I need to reinstall it so that the correct uninstaller is available after all?
I also found a directory in /private/tmp belonging to 'the software gizmo' - but I can't remove it, not even with root privileges, because it is mounted on a 'read-only file system' (according to the error messages). Actually, it is part of the root (and only) file system, which is not generally read-only. Any ideas on what needs to be done to be able to get rid of the stuff (like a dubious copy of Firefox 3.5.7) from under there? Or how an area of the file system can be marked 'read-only'?
It is my Mac - I paid for it because I couldn't get the company to buy me one, even though we needed some Macs to get our software running on Mac. They bought some for builds etc, but were not willing to let me have one to show to customers, etc.
Right click is equivalent to Control-Click - so I can do that, and was able to remove the System Preference items. I found one of the (other) bits of software that I want to get rid of in /Library/LaunchDaemons; I think I found the Symantec ones in /Library/StartupItems - the other directories looked clean. Thanks for the excellent assistance. – Jonathan Leffler – 2010-01-14T07:14:08.157