Whenever attempting to open a family history program I receive a Run Time Error 3051 indicating that the program is already open exclusively by another user. Consulting the manufacturers site FamilySearch.com reveals that many other users have experienced a similar problem. They report that removing the McAfee Virus Scan software (which I also use), loading the program, then reinstalling Virus Scan overcomes the problem. I would like to try this but I am unsure whether uninstalling Virus Scan will require me to reload all the updates since initial installation. Can you advise me? How do I avoid losing my updates?

This is a good question but unfortunately I am unsure of the answer. If anyone else is familiar with how the virus updates work, please write in. In the meantime, my first thought was that the latest updates may include all the previous updates. However, this is probably not the case because the package of updates would grow to a very large size and become quite large to download. A more likely possibility is that there is no need for the latest updates to repeat the virus definitions from previous updates. This could be because the viruses which the updates were designed to protect you against, are no longer a great threat. You might consider if it is likely that you would encounter one of those viruses. So, addressing your question, it is really up to you to decide if you want to uninstall your virus scanner and run the risk of losing the updates. If you have not encountered any viruses in the recent past, you may decide that it is worth the risk. If you do decide to proceed just remember to update the virus scanner (at least to provide protection against the current crop of viruses) after you have reinstalled it.