Do I have to get rid of AVG if I want to install Essentials on the new Windows 7 OS?
5 Answers
It's the same as with any other antivirus: Having two on the same system is not recommended.
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Indeed. One of our clients used to have trend, when the previous IT company they had migrated them to a new AV without ensuring proper unistallation of Trend and half their systems started BSoDing on a regular basis. Guess I should be happy, though, that's why they switched to us!– Jeff F.Jan 11, 2011 at 15:03
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1Having two products installed is usually fine, but don't have two on-access scanners running at the same time as they are likely to trip over each other. Also it is probably a good idea to pause/disable one product's on-access scanner before you run the other's on-demand scan. Jan 11, 2011 at 15:20
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2@David Spillet: Many of the products now are too deeply embedded into the system to coexist, even without the on-access scanners getting in each other's way, they also throw in LSPs, inject DLLs into every process they see, and otherwise cause problems. Back in the DOS TSR days, you could get away with it, nowadays you can't. Jul 17, 2011 at 20:11
Personally, I would uninstall AVG.
Like with other Anti Virus programs, you may get a combination that works and can be installed together, but just because you can does not mean you should.
I would never have two security programs that do the same job - AV, Firewall etc.... You are just going to be asking for trouble.
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Remember that a lot of them are going to try to do the Firewall job too even if they aren't advertised as a firewall. Jul 17, 2011 at 20:13
I did my research before I installed Microsofts's Essentials and they recommend you uninstall any other Anti Virus programs prior to installing theirs. Rather than uninstall my AVG, I disabled it, just in case I wasn't happy with Microsoft's. Works for me. Haven't seen a need to re-enable AVG, even to see if they play nice with each other, On the other hand, how does one really know if your Anti Virus program is really working?
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1Download the EICAR test file and see if it triggers a detection by your antivirus software :-) eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm– KezJul 29, 2010 at 9:32
You don't have to, but it is highly recommended to do so - your system might otherwise slow to a crawl.
I recommend uninstalling it. I just had a client who was complaining that their computer would not even work anymore after they got it back from me. I was confused, took it back, and sure enough, it was slower than molasses in winter.
Turned out that they installed AVG on the machine as a preventative measure, which conflicted with MSE. Bad news bears. It would just hang, and hang. I almost pulled my neckbeard out.