How to Get Rid of Personal Antivirus
Starting your PC one day, you find yourself face to face with a new program – Personal Antivirus – that you don’t remember installing. First of all, Personal Antivirus is not an antivirus software.
This software is actually dangerous for your computer, infecting your hard drive with a Vundo Trojan which is basically a rogue anti-spyware software. Symptoms of the virus include the constant pop-ups and threat alerts with the main purpose of getting you to buy a license for the Personal Antivirus.
This being said, don’t click any of the links featured by the program.
Time and patience are the primary requirements if you ever decide to remove the program on your own.
Your best bet would be to download a reliable anti-spyware program and running it in your computer to detect and get rid of the Trojan. As mentioned above, manual deletion is possible.
However, this option requires computer know-how; otherwise you will only be placing your files at further risk by attempting to handle vital system files. Keep in mind that deleting even one critical file could cause your computer to crash, and fixing a Vundo Trojan would require deletion of numerous registry files, hidden files and processes that it can even be confusing for a computer expert. However, if you really want to learn how to remove the software all on your own, then these are the most basic things you have to do:
First, you will have to block the Personal Antivirus domains, remove all the processes related to the Personal Antivirus software and delete all of the registries connected with the program. Some known registries include:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstallPersonal Antivirus_is1
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetEnumRootLEGACY_ITGRDENGINE
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesITGrdEngine
The list of files you will need to search and delete will be numerous and some of them may even take the form of genuine program files. This is the primary reason why manual removal is overlooked for a software removal tool.
Also, you must note that if removed incorrectly, the virus has the capability to reboot, meaning, restarting your computer will only bring Personal Antivirus back in your system. Worse, you might delete important files that could cause your PC to crash.
The program Spyware Doctor with Antivirus Software can prove useful when solving this problem.
Still, other softwares are available to serve the same purpose.
Once you’ve successfully removed Personal Antivirus from your system, upgrade your PC security by making sure that your antivirus is up-to-date. Regular scans are also necessary as well as being careful about what you download, whether it’s an mp3, a movie or some other type of file.
