I was running Avast Free Antivirus. I uninstalled it as I am doing some experimenting with another package. Meanwhile, I’m just running with Windows Defender.
What is left in the registry is the following:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\Provider\Av{8EA8924E-BC81-DC44-8BB0-8BAE75D86EBF}
This references Avast Antivirus. The data in this registry branch can be seen by the following Powershell command
C:> Get-CimInstance -Namespace root/SecurityCenter2 -ClassName AntivirusProduct
displayName : Avast Antivirus
instanceGuid : {8EA8924E-BC81-DC44-8BB0-8BAE75D86EBF}
pathToSignedProductExe : C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\wsc_proxy.exe
pathToSignedReportingExe : C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\wsc_proxy.exe
productState : 266240
timestamp : Tue, 25 Feb 2020 16:57:55 GMT
PSComputerName :
displayName : Windows Defender
instanceGuid : {D68DDC3A-831F-4fae-9E44-DA132C1ACF46}
pathToSignedProductExe : windowsdefender://
pathToSignedReportingExe : %ProgramFiles%\Windows Defender\MsMpeng.exe
productState : 397568
timestamp : Fri, 23 Apr 2021 16:13:45 GMT
PSComputerName :
Windows Defender has no problem and looking with the Security Center is shows that Windows Defender is the Antivirus provider.
But, I am trying to install Acronis True Image 2021 which contains an Antivirus component and it is complaining that Avast Antivirus must be uninstalled first.
I had completely uninstalled Avast. And after seeing this, I ran the avastclear.exe in Safe Mode but it did not get rid of this.
Normally, I’d just delete the registry entry, but regedit won’t let me do it. So now I’m stuck.