Suicide by Root Kit removal
At this point I'm less inclined then ever to suggest that any anti-malware product attempt this removal, since Sony now displays the following on their page regarding uninstalls:
Quote:
November 15th, 2005 - We currently are working on a new tool to uninstall First4Internet XCP software. In the meantime, we have temporarily suspended distribution of the existing uninstall tool for this software. We encourage you to return to this site over the next few days. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/form14.html
Only if this new uninstaller doesn't become available in a reasonable time frame (a couple weeks for development and testing) and/or doesn't truly remove the software completely and safely at that point should this be considered.
Until then, only removal of the hidden attribute of the 'Root Kit' technology and blocking of the problematic ActiveX control used with the earlier uninstaller should be considered. In fact, I feel that removing the hidden attribute is itself dangerous, since some users may then attempt to delete the files manually, which is known to be dangerous to the stability of the PC.
In addition, this cooling off period gives Team Spybot time to thoroughly test the detection and removal process on multiple platforms for all variants of the software currently known to exist, if they are indeed working on such a thing at all. If such removal is attempted, the potential for failure and damage to a PC is the responsibility of those removing it, not Sony.
By declaring this DRM package 'malware' some will feel they are justified to remove it, safely or not. Those who do this and fail will find out how quickly the public can turn on them since the last thing the user did was 'scan and fix' with their program, they won't care what was being removed or what disclaimers the software contains about such possibile damage.