symantec endpoint protection service stuck at stopping

Question

I am trying to uninstall Symantec Endpoint Protection, but I can't, the services stuck at stopping. Symantec Endpoint Protection is installed on Windows 2003 R2 server. Any suggestions on how to do it without rebooting the server?

Thanks!

Solution

Use End Process/End Process Tree from Task Manager. (Or try to terminate a process it's dependent on, if any - sometimes this will crash the process for you.)

(There's also a CLI command, taskkill /f, if you're a CLI junky.)

If that doesn't work, you have a "zombie process" which is hung waiting on a kernel resource. To kill a zombie process, you have to stop the kernel, which means rebooting.

Comments

[JohnThePro]

Getting out alive without a reboot is pretty unlikely. Did you use Symantec's removal tool? www-secure.symantec.com/norton-support/jsp/…

[George]

It won't install on Server OS. And I would still need to reboot it. I also have backup exec that I want to keep on that machine.

[Vitas]

Anybody managed to find cause of this? It is still happening in our company and the only known solution is restart...