Are you having a virus scan every time you are booted into Windows and the scan is showing hundreds of infections? Are you having a pop up next to the clock telling you that your system is infected and you need to download their antivirus software to clean it? Is there the phrase “Virus Alert” next to your system clock? You are probably having Micro Antivirus 2009, Antivirus 2008 XP, or something with a similar name installed on your system. Whatever the name is, these are all fake warnings and they pretty much act in the same way. They pretend they are legitimate virus scanners and try to trick you into paying them.
Disable Startup Services
To get rid of these infections, the first step is to prevent them from starting up. You can control startup program and services in System Configuration.
- Click the Start button, and click Run…
- In the Run box, type msconfig and press OK.
- The System Configuration box comes up, click on the Services tab.
- Check “Hide all Microsoft services”.
- In the remaining list of services, uncheck all entries.
- Click on the Startup tab.
- Uncheck all entries and click OK.
- Restart your computer
Once you restarted your computer, your system should be in a more functional state. If not, then you can always boot into safe mode.
Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware
The next step is to scan your system with an antivirus program. However, I have tried using popular commercial scanners such as Kaspersky and NOD32. But neither of them can completely remove this type of infections. The most effective scanner dealing with this type of infections is Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware. I have used it on a number of systems and it removed the infections successfully and fixed the registries. Some infections would disable your task manager, display properties, and remove the Run, My Computer, and other items in your Start menu. Malwarebytes can revert these change automatically in the registry.
- Download Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware software from their website.
- Install it on your computer.
- Once it starts up, just perform a quick scan.
- Once the scan is done, click on “view results”.
- Then click on remove.
After the scan, you can now restart your computer to see if you are still getting the fake infection warnings. You may also want to try scanning your computer with NOD32 or Kaspersky at this time for viruses that Malwarebytes couldn’t catch. In the end, you can enable your startup services again in System Configuration.