How to Uninstall Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) When It’s Not in the Program List
One computer had periodic severe slowdowns. It turned out that leftovers of Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) were still alive and busy in the system.
You could see it in Task Manager: the MSE process was loading the CPU heavily at startup and during scans.
Why MSE won’t uninstall the normal way
The interesting part: MSE wasn’t in the list of installed programs (Programs and Features), so you can’t remove it the standard way. This happens when an uninstall was interrupted at some point or the antivirus broke during an update.
You could boot into Safe Mode, delete the MSE folder (usually C:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client) and clean the registry, but that’s slow and risky. A dedicated tool is easier.
Microsoft’s MSE removal tool
It turns out such a tool exists, and Microsoft itself released it :-) It’s called Microsoft Fix it 50692 and removes Microsoft Security Essentials 2.x and later.
Download MicrosoftFixit50692.msi — I got the tool from Microsoft’s site and host a copy here in case you can’t find it there.
- Run
MicrosoftFixit50692.msiand install it like a normal program — nothing complicated. - The tool cleans the MSE leftovers out of the system by itself.
- Reboot — the slowdowns should be gone.
Important: after removing MSE, the computer has no antivirus. Install another antivirus right away or turn on the built-in Windows Defender (Windows 8 and 10 already have it).