Check out some similar questions!

kat_ash · Jun 4, 2009, 08:00 PM

Hello,
I am not going to lie and say I am all that computer savvy. But believe me. I have tried all ways that I have found in order to remove this blasted thing from my computer. I think that I am running Windows 98 (please hang onto your gasps... or grimaces of pain when I actually admit that this thing is 11 years old). I need help in order to remove this antivirus from the old gal. I keep getting an error message::
Error: Action failed for file setup.exe: creating backup...
Access is denied. (5) %DESTINATION% = "C:\Program Files\Grisoft\AVG Free\setup.exe.install_backup", %SOURCE% = "C:\Program Files\Grisoft\AVG Free\setup.exe"

I have tried to install the driver thingy again and got to the screen to uninstall but that did not work either. I know that should donate my old beast but I have attachment to her... she has been kind and suits my purpose at this time. Please help me to remove this... Please. :o
I will be forever grateful to whomever can offer a solution.

Sincerely,
Kathleen

WallyHelps · Jun 5, 2009, 05:04 AM

Don't be embarrassed about running Windows 98 Kathleen--it still gets the job done! I am also running AVG on a Win98 machine just fine.

From the error message it appears that AVG is trying to make a backup of the setup program for some reason and it cannot access the file it is trying to create. I can think of a couple of reasons for this:

The disk is full
The file is marked read-only

First of all, when did you get the error in question? During the install or the remove? If it was during the install, then AVG is probably not installed at all and there is nothing to worry about (except for not having an anti-virus program). On the other hand, if AVG was installed and running, but now you want to remove it and are getting the error, you will need to do some more work.

Assuming the latter, open a DOS (Command Prompt) window and do the following:

cd "\Program Files\Grisoft\AVG Free"
This just gets us to the directory in question
dir setup.*
Look at the very end of the output for "bytes free". It should be several million bytes free or your disk is essentially full. If not, you need to delete some files, empty the recycle bin, etc. to make some more space.
Look at the output to see if there is a file by the name of "setup.exe.install_backup".
If there is, try deleting it: del "setup.exe.install_backup"

Now try to do the un-install again and hope for the best. Let us know what you encounter.

Best of Luck,
WallyH

seahwk83 · Jun 5, 2009, 09:28 AM

Here is an unisntaller

AVG Remover to completely uninstall AVG
AVG Antivirus and Security Software - Tools download

First link to download
AVG Remover(32bit)

kat_ash · Jun 5, 2009, 11:59 AM

Okay I tried both methods and still have no luck. Yay me for figuring out DOS Mode. Learn something new every day :)

First suggestion: Failed as it stated that it can't find "setup.exe.install_backup"

Second suggestion: Gave me an error right away. So it wouldn't let me get too far.

I am open to any more and all suggestions. Thank you for your help.

Kathleen

morgaine300 · Jun 5, 2009, 06:26 PM

The computer I'm on is six years old and great. The one sitting over on the other side of the desk is about 12 - 13 years old and I have Win95 on it. I have two from late 80's to early 90's, one of which has just DOS and the other has Win3.1. Old computer are great. :-)

seahwk83 · Jun 5, 2009, 07:42 PM

Go into safe mode and try to uninstall as usuall and if error there, try the uninstall tool posted above again, but do all this in safe mode

WallyHelps · Jun 6, 2009, 07:30 AM

Hi Kathleen,
I found this link that might be of some help.

Best of luck,
WallyH

WallyHelps · Jun 16, 2009, 06:31 AM

Kathleen -
Well, I just had the "opportunity" to try to uninstall AVG on my old WinME computer, and ran into the same problem you did.

What I finally did to get rid of AVG--since all conventional forms of removal failed--was to edit the registry. Note that this is pretty dangerous, but like a gun or chain saw, can be useful if done properly.

Basically, we need to prevent AVG from starting up when the computer boots. There is a key in the Windows Registry that controls start-up programs, and this is what we want to change.

Click Start->Run
Type regedit into the Run box
On the left is a hierarchical tree of the registry keys
Navigate down to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run <- Note: There is no space between the r and e
Click the small + sign to expand a given line
Now, on the right side there should be two keys that start (or contain) the string AVG
Click on one of them and press the Delete key. Confirm.
Click on the other one and delete it too.
Exit out of regedit and reboot

You can now delete the C:\Program Files\Grisoft\AVG Free folder, but it won't hurt anything to leave it. I installed a new anti-virus and just left the AVG folder alone. Maybe in a week or so I'll delete it.

Hope this helps,
WallyH

Marton · Jan 10, 2012, 05:03 PM

I know this is rather old, but I had to remove AVG Free from an old Win98 PC and ran into the problem in the original post.
Solution: go to C:\Program Files\Grisoft\AVG Free and select setup.exe. Press Ctrl-C, then Ctrl-V. A file named "Copy of setup.exe" will appear, open it and uninstall AVG normally :)

Hope this helps someone :)