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Manual Removal Guide for TrustCleaner

Friday

New member
The following instructions have been created to help you to get rid of "TrustCleaner" 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.

Threat Details:

Categories:
  • malware
Description:
TrustCleaner gets installed on the computer without user consent. When it is installed on the computer it finds a lot of malware (that does not exist)which can be removed by purchasing a licence only.​
Removal Instructions:

Desktop:

Please remove the following files from your desktop.
To check where they are pointing to, right-click them and choose "Properties" from the context menu appearing.
  • Shortcuts named "Trust Cleaner.lnk" and pointing to "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Trust Cleaner\TrustCleaner.exe".
Autorun:

Please use Spybot-S&D, RunAlyzer or msconfig.exe to remove the following autorun entries.
  • Entries named "Trust Cleaner" and pointing to "*".
  • Entries named "Trust Cleaner" and pointing to "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Trust Cleaner\TrustCleaner.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 or RunAlyzer to locate and get rid of these entries.
  • Products that have a key or property named "Trust Cleaner".
Files:

Please use Windows Explorer or another file manager of your choice to locate and delete these files.
  • The file at "<$DESKTOP>\Trust Cleaner.lnk".
  • The file at "<$PROGRAMS>\Trust Cleaner\Trust Cleaner.lnk".
  • The file at "<$PROGRAMS>\Trust Cleaner\Uninstall.lnk".
  • The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Trust Cleaner\whitelist.cfg".
  • The file at "<$PROGRAMS>\Trust Cleaner\Trust Cleaner.lnk".
  • The file at "<$PROGRAMS>\Trust Cleaner\Uninstall.lnk".
  • The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Trust Cleaner\TCD.sys".
  • The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Trust Cleaner\TrustCleaner.exe".
  • The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Trust Cleaner\uninstall.exe".
  • The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Trust Cleaner\xas.dat".
Make sure you set your file manager to display hidden and system files. If TrustCleaner uses rootkit technologies, use our RootAlyzer or our Total Commander anti-rootkit plugins.
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 to remove them.

Folders:

Please use Windows Explorer or another file manager of your choice to locate and delete these folders.
  • The directory at "<$PROFILE>\StartMenu\Programs\Trust Cleaner".
  • The directory at "C:\Program Files\Trust Cleaner".
  • The directory at "<$PROGRAMS>\Trust Cleaner".
  • The directory at "<$PROGRAMS>\Trust Cleaner".
  • The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Trust Cleaner".
  • The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\Trust Cleaner\Quarantine".
Make sure you set your file manager to display hidden and system files. If TrustCleaner uses rootkit technologies, use our RootAlyzer or our Total Commander anti-rootkit plugins.
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 "Trust Cleaner" at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\".
  • Delete the registry key "Trust Cleaner" at "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\".
If TrustCleaner uses rootkit technologies, use our RegAlyzer, RootAlyzer or our Total Commander anti-rootkit plugins.

Final Words:

If neither Spybot-S&D nor self help did resolve the issue or you would prefer one on one help,
  1. Please read these instructions before requesting assistance,
  2. Then start your own thread in the Malware Removal Forum where a volunteer analyst will advise you as soon as available.
 
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