Hello, I am hoping someone in this community forum can assist me. I have been unable to uninstall the Avast registry key. I have used the Avast clear tool in non safe mode and safe mode and it will not delete. I tried to manually delete it in Safe Mode and it won’t delete. I even did a reinstall and uninstall using the Avast Clear tool and the key is still there.
“Error Deleting Key - Cannot delete Avast Software while deleting key.”
“Avast Software cannot be opened. An error is preventing this key from being opened. Details: The system cannot find the file specified.”
When I right click on permissions for Security in the registry - - “The requested security information is either unavailable or can’t be displayed.”
Any assistance or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thank you.
How badly do you want the key gone?
This is not specific to Avast, but the way I might go about it, is editing the registry from outside of the installed copy of Windows.
You could make a Windows installation media USB drive. Personally I would use a Ventoy drive with a Windows ISO on it. Might have to follow the online instructions to boot from it through UEFI security. Then instead of installing Windows, interrupt the installer and pull up a command prompt and then regedit. Load the hive from the installed copy of Windows on your PC, and see if you can now delete the key. Since the original OS isn’t running, it shouldn’t be able to keep a lock on it.
Actually I’d probably run an old Hiren’s disk from Ventoy and enter a live cd style Windows 7 environment in RAM. It would depend if Win7 can open and modify Win10/11 registries. I haven’t tried but it probably can. Then proceed as before by deleting the offending key.
I don’t use Bitlocker. If that’s enabled there’ll be extra steps to access the PC’s drive.
Alternatively maybe Windows is reporting that the key is there when it isn’t and that’s why it errors out when you try to delete it.
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I thank you for your response. What you are describing is beyond my expertise. I guess I can just leave the key there for now. It doesn’t seem to be causing any issues.
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