Cannot uninstall Registry Cleaner

[Suenote]

[SIZE=4]I am having a heck of a time uniinstalling Registry Cleaner which brought in a worm with it any ideas Please HELP!!! :rolleyes:

[PrntRhd]

Suenote,
Download HiJackThis v1.99.1 into a folder, not onto the desktop, doubleclick the exe after installation, make a log into NotePad and copy/paste the complete log with headers into a new thread in Applications & Security forum, break it into a couple of posts if too large. Find HJT here:
http://www.lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/index.html

Do not remove anything until the experts advise as most items will be necessary for proper function.
Also keep with a single forum when removing stuff as it makes it less dangerous, some of the stuff has a specfic order for removal without damaging Windows.

Also what worm did the file bring with it? What application detected the worm?

[pop pop]

I assume you have tried the usual--the application uninstaller (if it came with one) and Add/Remove Programs. I don't know anything about this particular product, but crapware routinely does not come with an uninstaller and will fight you if you try to remove it via Add/Remove Programs. I have a recommendation for safe registry inspection and cleanup that I'll give you in a second.

SInce a worm came with this thing, I recommend that you download HijackThis. (http://tomcoyote.com/hjt/)

It is a compressed (zipped) file, so you'll have to extract it. Make sure that you actually extract HijackThis to its own folder--not the desktop and not a temp folder. DO NOT run it from within a zip manager (Winzip), as no backups will be saved. Close all open programs including your browswer. Now go to the directory where you extracted HijactThis and doubleclick the program icon. Click Do A System Scan and Save A Log. Your system will be scanned and a log created. Now return to the Forum and reply to your original post. If you had closed it, open the Log in Notepad. The log will be in the same directory as HijacThis and will be named hijackthis.log, unless you changed it. Highlight the entire contents. Copy and paste the contents of the HijackThis log into your post. Do not attempt to fix anything yet. Wait for help. Budfred or Classic or one of the other HJT gurus will be along and let you know what if anything is bad.

That particular program might be able to be removed or cleaned via HJT. The guys will have suggestions.

For general system cleaning (emptying recycle, temp files, etc) and realatively safe registry cleanup (always be conservative when dealing with the registry), I use and recommend CCleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/) (CrapCleaner). It's a great program. Wait until you post a HJT log and get comments before using CCleaner. It could remove evidence of malware and make the diagnosis/cure more difficult.

EDIT: Beat to the punch :p That's what I get for being a slow typist and writing so much. :rolleyes:

[Bassmaster]

Can't help you in this instance but for the future, never use a registry cleaner. You should go into the registry yourself and delete items and if you don't know what to delete or not, you shouldn't be using a cleaner because one doesn't know what to let it delete. I would say that reg cleaners are 75% of what is wrong with our pc's and are mostly hype. JMO on what I've seen. :)

[pop pop]

never use a registry cleaner

While that may be the "safest" approach, I disagree. The build up of "muck" in the registry is almost unstoppable otherwise and will inevitable affect performance as the system has to work its way through all the crap that gets left behind after installs, uninstalls, and deletions. This is courtesy of sloppy, lazy M$ design as well as the same thing on the part of individual applications. You can safely and effectively clean the registry, keeping it lean and maintaing performance using a tool like CCleaner. It's the best I've seen. It prompts you to let it make a backup of any changes before they are executed, just in case you want or need to undo them later.

You should go into the registry yourself and delete items

There's a reason that everbody including M$ strongly disagrees with that statement. The primary one is that for the average user, it's inviting disaster. Even an experienced user has to be careful. A second reason is just plain efficiency. The registry is a "hive" and it's normally monsterously huge and complicated to get around in much less find exactly what you're looking for, if you even know what you're looking for. CCleaner will quickly find those "invalid uninstaller references" (programs that are no longer there), invalid shortcuts, and references to missing or unused dlls. Generally, those things are safe to clean, and I want them out, but I'm not going to spend hours hunting them down myself when I can use a very good tool like CCleaner to do it and get it done in seconds.

Just my opinion based on what I've seen...and done. :)

[Bassmaster]

There's a reason that everbody including M$ strongly disagrees with that statement. The primary one is that for the average user, it's inviting disaster. Even an experienced user has to be careful

You're agreeing with me but just in different words. :)

That was my point, that people who don't know about the registry shouldn't be messing around with it. Either you do know about it and you can go in and delete it yourself or you don't know about it and if you use a reg cleaner and you let it delete things you have no idea what it is deleting. Either way, it should be left alone. From all I've read over the years, they say that reg cleaners are one of the biggest problems with peoples pc's being messed up and it's almost always because of reg cleaners. Personally, I don't know enough about the registry to debate but that's just what I've heard. You know more about it probably than I do and I respect your opinion. :)

[PrntRhd]

Speaking from personal experience, registry cleaners (can you say Symantec Clean Sweep's color coded system) can be dangerous, but I have never had an issue using CCleaner's utility which automatically prompts the user to back up the Registry before removing any item.

Suenote's problem is due to a rogue program masking as a registry cleaner but one that loads malware instead of fixing things, then hits you up for money to fix the damage.

[pop pop]

True enough. Caution is best advised when dealing with the registry. We can debate it another time. Suenote's problem is the issue. Nuff said.

[Suenote]

Thanks gang for all the suggestions I will try them out:)

Suenote

[Suenote]

Thanks PrntRhd...I am waiting for my brother (my guru) to come over in a couple of hours to help me with this thing. The worm was detected by Windows Update, and Norton

Suenote:)

[Suenote]

Wi Update locks , Sp2 from CD gets access denied half-way through update process. but fortunately av is working and brother installed eval of norton fw to protect against possible hijacker, he is bringing me new box in 2 weeks so this one will be outdated.

Suenote :)

Ran crapcleaner and hijack this and they found usual cookies webminers and chk files

[Quantax]

Speaking from personal experience, registry cleaners (can you say Symantec Clean Sweep's color coded system) can be dangerous, but I have never had an issue using CCleaner's utility which automatically prompts the user to back up the Registry before removing any item.

.
Quite true because the Registry cleaners can be TOO thorough in what they do. Now fortunately when I've tested one or more(for free trial testing)they didn't screw things up with the Registry but there were simply TOO many items reported which to me was just making mountains out of molehills.