I have been using NAV off and on since 2003, currently on NAV2009. I have uninstalled NAV many times for various reasons since then. One thing remains constant, after the uninstall there are always 8 to 10 enum/root/legacy entries in the ControlSet section of the windows registry that belong to Symantec. They appear to have something to do with drivers. The Norton Removal Tool will not touch these entries, neither will Revo uninstaller, they have to be manually removed using Regedit. So to anyone who thinks they are doing a complete uninstall using the NRT or Revo think again. Symantec is not the only company that does this as I have seen other security software that leaves behind legacy entries but not as many as Symantec. I always remove them manually in order to prevent conflicts but obviously everyone can’t do that. I believe many times when people have software problems it’s because they have not removed legacy entries from software that was uninstalled long ago. If people looked in the legacy section of their registry they would be amazed at the remnants of software they thought they had uninstalled a long time ago. What exactly are these legacy entries and why are they so hard to get rid of?
They relate to installed drivers or services in the …CurrentControlSet\Services.… key. For example, you can take the FIPS service::
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Fips
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Fips\Enum"0"=“Root\LEGACY_FIPS\0000”
Some gets along with the Operating System, and others gets installed during the installataion of drivers/services for new programs. CurrentControlSet is the only one to be concerned with in most cases. They just exist and are required so long as the actual service or driver is installed. Do not try to delete them. In a rare case they might require deletion after, and un-install if and only if the same program cannot be re-installed because of it’s own existing “ENUM, LEGACY” key. You cannot delete these registry keys when other processes have open handles to them. This needs to be performed by specific direction from software manufacturer and it requires changing of registry permissions as Administrator. For more information regarding this, you can check with Microsoft Support.
Along with Yogesh’s informative post I would like to add that removing Legacy keys can lead to severe system instability later on. The keys are left in place so that new drivers being installed will not merge in the system in such a way that past or current drivers can not be loaded properly.
Yogesh and David have both already provided valuable responses. To put a more technical face on the issue though...
The "legacy" part has nothing to do with a driver being uninstalled, it's a style of driver. You can find remnants of other non-legacy drivers in the CurrentControlSet area as well.
The entries are left behind because the Symantec software doesn't own those entries. When we register drivers with the operating system the program says something like, "Here I am, please use me" and the operating system creates those entries. During uninstall the program says something like, "I'm going away now, please don't use me" and operating system takes note not to load the drivers but leaves those entries. You will see very similar behavior for any hardware drivers that you add and remove from your system.
As eluded to previously, the operating system keeps these entries around for a reason. There are databases within the operating system to keep track of the various drivers that are installed and keeping these entries help to avoid conflicts and add in re-installation.
How can it be bad to remove registry entries that relate to software and drivers that are no longer on the system? Are you telling me that when I install Norton software I should not delete old, obsolete legacy entries that relate to Kaspersky, AVG or NOD32 when they were uninstalled long ago?
Yes; Windows will take care of the internal database configurations.
dbrisendine, thanks for your reply. Where did that Bot Obliterator come from? Never seen that before!
Several higher levels were reached yesterday. And there are other changes to come in the next few days. Thanks for noticing. I hope you questions of the Legacy keys has been answered to your satisfaction. Reese’s post goes into a little detail about this; basically, you can lave these keys as they are and it will not interfere or conflict installations of any software at all.
Thanks dbrisendine, and congrats on reaching Bot Obliterator!