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geek software tips

getting rid of the McAfee Process Validation Service which I never installed

Recently I noticed my laptop was acting rather sluggish after rebooting. As a Windows geek I swiftly started the improved Windows 10 task manager and noticed something peculiar.

A “McAfee Process Validation Service” (or mfevtps.exe for you techies) was gobbling up a lot of CPU cycles. I know McAfee of course, but I never installed any of their antivirus products, so how on earth did that get on my system?

A screenshots showing the McAfee service scanning and slowing down my system why I didn't even install it. How queer.

I found out that this thing is actually a Windows service, which you can see in the Service tab of your Task Manager. So when you look into the startup tab to see what triggers the process, you don’t even see it there.

It also turns out that this bit of software is automatically installed when you run the McAfee Stinger antivirus detection software.
Now Stinger is great, or at least used to be great. It’s supposed to be a standalone executable you can just pop onto any system and use it to scan for viruses and malware without having to install any full blow antivirus suite.

Unfortunately this now also installs a bit of malware itself.

Now how do I get rid of something that I never installed? It can’t be found anywhere when you use the regular Windows uninstall tools. I knew this thing was sitting in my c:\windows\system32 folder, but I didn’t want to just rip it out by hand because there might still be some other crap littered here and there that I don’t know about, and might be causing problems once it’s half destroyed.

If found out that McAfee has a specific removal tool. I guess they get this question a lot…
Finally this MCPR.exe removal tool deleted the unwanted service and after a single reboot my system now is a tiny bit cleaner and a tiny bit faster again.

Which is nice.

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