How to turn off McAfee programmatically

Question

I am running McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.7i on my Windows 7 machine.

I am writing this utility to configure McAfee. Now how do I turn off McAfee programmatically (using C++ or C#)?

The only ways I can do it right now are:

• Manually opening the McAfee Virusshield icon from the system tray and then selecting Exit.

• Run a command prompt under SYSTEM account (using System internals tool psexec) and then issue the command "sc stop McShield"

Solution 1

I guess the point of virus scanners is that they CANNOT be switched off by other software (at least not easily)

Solution 2

Right click on the VShield icon in the system tray and choose Manage features and the VirusScan Enterprise Double click on Access Protection to get to the properties Un-check the option for "Prevent McAfee services from being stopped" You should now be able to stop the McAfee services