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View Full Version : Manual Removal Guide for Fake.PC-Antispyware



Friday
2008-11-28, 18:34
The following instructions have been created to help you to get rid of "Fake.PC-Antispyware" manually.
Use this guide at your own risk; software should usually be better suited to remove malware, since it is able to look deeper.

If this guide was helpful to you, please consider donating towards this site (http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=donate).

Threat Details:

Categories:
malware

Description:
Fake.PC-Antispyware claims to be an antispyware solution that shows harmless entries as high risk problems. If the user wants to fix this false positives he has to purchase a license.
Removal Instructions:

Autorun:

Please use Spybot-S&D (http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=spybotsd), RunAlyzer (http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=runalyzer) or msconfig.exe to remove the following autorun entries.

Entries named "PC-Antispyware" and pointing to "?<$PROGRAMFILES>\PC-Antispyware\PC-Antispyware.exe*".

Installed Software List:

You can try to uninstall products with the names listed below; for items identified by other properties or to avoid malware getting active again on uninstallation, use Spybot-S&D (http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=spybotsd) or RunAlyzer (http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=runalyzer) to locate and get rid of these entries.

Products that have a key or property named "PC-Antispyware".

Files:

Please use Windows Explorer or another file manager of your choice to locate and delete these files.

The file at "<$COMMONPROGRAMS>\PC-Antispyware\PC-Antispyware Uninstall.lnk".
The file at "<$COMMONPROGRAMS>\PC-Antispyware\PC-Antispyware.lnk".
The file at "<$APPDATA>\PC-Antispyware\config.xml".
The file at "<$APPDATA>\PC-Antispyware\Sites.bl".
The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\PC-Antispyware\IeExtension.dll".
The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\PC-Antispyware\PC-Antispyware.db".
The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\PC-Antispyware\PC-Antispyware.exe".
The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\PC-Antispyware\pcantispyware.pkg".
The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\PC-Antispyware\PopupBlocker.dll".
The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\PC-Antispyware\program.info".
The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\PC-Antispyware\Uninstall.exe".
Make sure you set your file manager to display hidden and system files. If Fake.PC-Antispyware uses rootkit technologies, use our RootAlyzer (http://forums.spybot.info/downloads.php?id=8) or our Total Commander anti-rootkit plugins (http://forums.spybot.info/downloads.php?id=3).
You will have to use a global search for files without a name specified. Be extra careful, because just the name might not be enough to identify files!

Important: There are more files that cannot be safely described in simple words. Please use Spybot-S&D (http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=spybotsd) to remove them.

Folders:

Please use Windows Explorer or another file manager of your choice to locate and delete these folders.

The directory at "<$COMMONPROGRAMS>\PC-Antispyware".
The directory at "<$APPDATA>\PC-Antispyware".
The directory at "<$APPDATA>\PC-Antispyware\logs".
The directory at "<$APPDATA>\PC-Antispyware\startup".
The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\PC-Antispyware".
Make sure you set your file manager to display hidden and system files. If Fake.PC-Antispyware uses rootkit technologies, use our RootAlyzer (http://forums.spybot.info/downloads.php?id=8) or our Total Commander anti-rootkit plugins (http://forums.spybot.info/downloads.php?id=3).
You will have to use a global search for files without a name specified. Be extra careful, because just the name might not be enough to identify folders!

Registry:

You can use regedit.exe (included in Windows) to locate and delete these registry entries.

Delete the registry key "PC-Antispyware" at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\".
Delete the registry key "PC-Antispyware" at "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\".
Delete the registry key "{10F0C2A9-8E38-43E3-204D-45524C494E20}" at "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\".
Delete the registry key "{10F0C2A9-8E38-43E3-204D-45524C494E20}" at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\".
If Fake.PC-Antispyware uses rootkit technologies, use our RegAlyzer (http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=regalyzer), RootAlyzer (http://forums.spybot.info/downloads.php?id=8) or our Total Commander anti-rootkit plugins (http://forums.spybot.info/downloads.php?id=3).

Final Words:

If neither Spybot-S&D nor self help did resolve the issue or you would prefer one on one help,
Please read these instructions (http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=288) before requesting assistance,
Then start your own thread in the Malware Removal Forum (http://forums.spybot.info/forumdisplay.php?f=22) where a volunteer analyst will advise you as soon as available.