WinPC Antivirus is a fake program pretending to be an antivirus application by promoting itself in a form of virus scanner that will detect numerous threats found on the computer. WinPC Antivirus acts very similarly to its sister program WinPC Defender, including interface and method of deceiving computer owners. When installed, it usually bombarded screens with different alerts and Task Bar warnings that will never stop until it was removed from the system. There are times that it can convinced users to purchase the registered version of the program. Having the licensed version of WinPC Antivirus is not advisable. Since it was identified as part of rogue family, expect that it can do nothing positive once installed on the system. Remove WinPC Antivirus via Add/Remove programs of Windows. Additionally, WinPC Antivirus can also be removed automatically by thoroughly scanning the PC with legitimate anti-malware application.
What WinPC Antivirus Does?
This program will execute automatically a virus scan.
It will modify Windows Registry and add the following entries:
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinPC Antivirus
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\don’t load “scui.cpl”
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\don’t load “wscui.cpl”
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “sysav”
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center “AntiVirusDisableNotify” => 1
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center “FirewallDisableNotify” => 1
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center “UpdatesDisableNotify” => 1
The threat will drop the following malicious files:
- winav.exe
- WinPC Antivirus.LNK
How to Remove WinPC Antivirus Manually
1. Restart your computer in SafeMode
– After Power-On the computer, just before Windows start, press F8
– From the selections, Select SafeMode
2. Remove Registry entries that the threat added. You MUST BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY FIRST.
– Click Start > Run
– Type in the field, regedit
– Navigate and look for the registry entries mentioned above and delete if necessary
3. Delete malicious files that the threat added:
– Base on the given location above, browse and delete the file
– If no location is given, click Start>Search> and search for the file.
– If cannot be deleted, press Ctrl+Alt+Del to access Task Manager, see if the file is running in the process. If it is, select the file and click End Process. Perform file delete again.
How to Easily Remove WinPC Antivirus
1. All running application may need to be close prior to running these procedure. You may want to Print this instructions as your reference later.
2. Download SuperAntiSpyware and save it to your Desktop.
3. Close all running programs.
4. Double-Click on the downloaded SuperAntiSpyware application to start the installation.
Note:Some malware on the system may prevent execution of SuperAntiSpyware. In this case you have to rename the file to something as long as it still has .exe extention (ex: myfile.exe)
5. Install SAS using the default settings. Just click Accept or Next after each window.
6. It will prompt you for an Update, please click Yes
7. Restart your computer in SafeMode
– After Power-On the computer, just before Windows start, press F8
– From the selections, Select SafeMode
8. Double-click on the SAS icon to begin scanning your computer.
9. Click on the Preferences button.
10. Click Scanning Control tab
11. Under Scanner Options make sure the following are marked checked:
– Close browsers before scanning
– Scan for tracking cookies
– Terminate memory threats before quarantining
– Please leave the others unchecked.
– Click the Close button to leave the control center screen.
12. Close the Preferences and proceed to main window
13. Click Scan your Computer.
14. On the left pane, select which drive to scan, we suggest to select all drives including USB devices, but NOT CD/DVD drives
15. On the right pane, please select Perform Complete Scan
16. Click Next to start the scan
17. A Summary window will appear after the scan. Click OK
18. Make sure that you have marked checked all the detected WinPC Antivirus files, click Next
19. It will quarantine all detected threats and prompts for reboot, click Yes
20. To guard your computer from threats such as WinPC Antivirus, we suggest you to install a full version of SuperAntiSpyware.
