Okay, today I am going to present my blog's readers with a small, interesting puzzle of sorts. I'm going to walk you through a series of pictures, and you have to guess what's wrong with them.

Here's picture number one. This is the main interface screen for McAfee SecurityCentre:

Here's picture number two. This is the menu that you get when you right-click on the McAfee SecurityCentre icon in Windows' Notification Area, which is how you open the main interface screen:

Do you see it? There's something important in these two pictures. Spend a moment trying to see it. I'll leave some space between here and the next clue.

























Here's picture number three. There's nothing important about this picture. It's just a small hint about what you might be looking for in pictures one and two:

Some of you have seen it by now and are smiling wryly, others are still baffled. Keep going.

























Okay, here's your final hint. This pretty much gives it away. This is the screen you get when you try to uninstall McAfee SecurityCentre in Windows.

Now go back and look at the first two images.

Have you guessed? No cheating!

























Pop quiz, hotshot. How do you close McAfee SecurityCentre?

No, smart guy, I don't mean by going into the Task Manager and killing the McAfee SecurityCentre process or processes. No, I don't mean by going into MSCONFIG and disabling McAfee SecurityCentre from automatically launching when Windows boots, then rebooting to an operating system in which it isn't running. I want to know how you close the antivirus application.

I want to know where the off switch is on this thing.

I want to know how one uninstalls this application without resorting to techniques more usually employed to exorcise malware.

























Here's McAfee's official response:

MSCONFIG! Nice!