How to Remove or Uninstall Kaspersky Anti-virus without Password

Are you facing a problem while trying to uninstall Kaspersky Anti-virus from your Windows machine? Most common occurrence of this issue happens when you have set a security Password for the Anti-virus and you have forgotten it. And then suddenly you want to uninstall or remove Kaspersky AV, but you can’t because it’s asking for the password.

This can turn into a very frustrating situation, especially if you want to remove or update your Windows operating system and it doesn’t let you because you have to remove the Anti-virus first.

Here are the most common reasons for uninstalling Kaspersky AV without a password:

• You have forgotten the password and you need to install another Anti-virus application
• You want to remove or update the current Operating system
• Anti-virus is malfunctioning and you need to remove it
• You want to configure advanced settings and policies of the AV
• Kaspersky AV has expired and you need to uninstall it

Can I remove Kaspersky AV without a password?

Yes. Fortunately, there’s a way to remove the Anti-virus from your computer even if you don’t have the password. However, it involves messing around with the registry keys. You should only go for this method if it’s absolutely necessary.

Procedure

Follow these steps:

1. Restart your Computer into Safe Mode. If you don’t know how to, follow the instructions HERE.
2. Once you have logged in, open the run dialogue box and type “regedit” and press Enter.
3. Browse to this registry path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\KasperskyLab\protected\KES10SP1\settings
4. Look for the EnablePswrdProtect entry in the key list.
5. Set the value to 0.
6. Reboot your machine and load Windows in the normal mode.
7. Go to the Control Panel and uninstall Kaspersky AV.

That’s it. All you need to do is to change the value of that particular registry key and you are good to go.

It is always advisable to backup your registry before undergoing this procedure. Any accidental modification or deletion may result in corruption of Windows files.

It’s also worth mentioning that the location of the “EnablePswrdProtect” can be different for different versions of Kaspersky AV. You might need to browse other related registry paths if you’re using an older or newer version of Anti-virus.

Here are a couple of other version’s paths to find the key:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\KasperskyLab\AVP16.0.1\settings

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\KasperskyLab\Products\settings