Best thing to do to make sure that there are no left overs of previously uninstalled security programs around. Not all uninstallers do a proper job. And left over applications, drivers or services can cause all sort of “interesting effects”.
Following are two of my tutorials to make sure there are no more left overs.
Use existing removal tools
Try using removal tools for those programs. Here is a list of removal tools for common av programs: ESET Knowledgebase .
Otherwise do a Google search with terms “removal tool” and * name of product or vendor*.
For a more technical hands on approach:
We are gonna take a look to see if there are some old drivers of your previously uninstalled security programs are still around. First run "set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1’ without the quotes from the command prompt. Then go to Device Manager → View → show hidden devices → now look under Non Plug and Play drivers → when you see a driver that belongs to your previous security programs click right → uninstall —> reboot your computer. You need to Google the driver’s names to see to what programs they belong to. You don’t want to uninstall Microsoft/Windows related drivers of course; even some Microsoft drivers may show up as non active please don’t uninstall them. It is best to make a system restore point before this of course.
When the problem persists make sure there are no auto starts from your previous security programs. Download Autoruns and run it.
This program finds about all auto starts in Windows. This tool can therefore seriously damage Windows when not handled properly. After starting push Escape and go to Options and choose to hide Windows and Microsoft entries, to include empty locations and then push F5 to refresh.
Now check all entries to see if there are references to your previous security program. When you find them untick them. After unticking reboot your computer and see what happens.