my school provides me w/ norton antivirus for os X. i installed it and the app wouldn't work properly because it couldn't find some resource or another. well, i wanted to get rid of it and it but it installed stuff all over my hard drive. i manually searched for everything that contained norton or symantec in the name, and deleted everything. the only thing that's left is "norton missed tasks". OSX wont let me delete it b/c it is in use. is there any way to kill of this last remnant of the original app?
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item in trash always in use
- Thread starter flalaw
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I quit everything that wouldn't cause to me be logged out and i still get get rid of the file. WTF? Is there any way to check what a particular file or program is being used by?
You did number one on the list of 'Things that will Spanner OSX'. You installed a Norton product.
I believe the whole list goes like this:
1. Dont install Norton.
...
Try restarting (this will kill the running tasks) then emptying your trash. If it is still in use then you have a bigger problem. To make sure you get everything try reinstalling Norton then using the uninstall function (you should see it when installing) to make sure you dont mess up an already messed up uninstall. If there is no uninstall option then I dont know what you can do.
Seriously if someone had installed Norton on my machine, after I had beaten them to death with a really big hammer, I would reinstall OSX. Im not joking.
If you want to get rid of that file, try rebooting in safe mode. Yes, Mac OS X has a safe mode. Restart the computer and then hold down the shift key. It will take about 10x longer to boot because it has to perform a system and/or hard disk check before it boots. So it may look like it isn't going to boot but it will. Just be patient.
You should then be able to delete that file and empty the trash.
You should then be able to delete that file and empty the trash.
For the same reason you don't want Norton on a PC. It's junk. Malicious, buggy, invasive, crappy JUNK.
Okay, i finally managed to get rid of that random file. Is there anything else I need to do to remove all other traces of norton that might be bad for my machine? All files that have norton or symantec in the file name have been deleted so far.
Symantec preys on people's ignorance and fears. They have been for years. And the Mac is no exception. Many switchers (windows -> OS X, OS 9 -> OS X) fall victim to them. Their products for the Mac are so bad that they've discontinued many of them. One of the first steps in troubleshooting people's issues.. if they mention a Symantec/Norton product, have them get rid of it.
There are probably a few files in your Home Folder/Library. Look for anything symantec and delete it. Also, while you're in the Library folder, go into the Preferences folder and see if there's any .plist files for anything Norton, or Symantec. They normally won't hurt anything if the app isn't there to access them, but I guess it never hurts to keep your system as clean as possible. Look in Homefolder/Library/Application Support and delete anything Symantec or Norton.
You may also want to look in your HD/Library folder to see if there's anything Symantec or Norton in there. Also, look in the preferences file there as well while you're there.