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AntiVirusGold Removal

by Oscar Sodani
January 21, 2006

Oscar Sodani is a founder of Help2Go and owner of Help2Go Networks, an IT consulting firm in the Washington D.C. area. Oscar holds the CISSP certification as well as industry certifications from Microsoft, Cisco and Novell.

AntiVirusGold is yet another "rogue" anti-spyware program, meaning that it issues false information about your system, all in the hope that you will purchase the "full" version of AntiVirusGold, which of course costs money. It's a scam, pure and simple.





(Note: You should print this page out before continuing)

Remove AntiVirusGold

To remove AntiVirus Gold, you'll need a tool called smitRem.exe written by "noahdfear". This tool was made famous for removing a similar rogue spyware product called SpyAxe. He has since expanded it to take out AntiVirusGold as well!

Download smitRem.exe  

Once you have downloaded the file, double-click on it to run it. You'll see a window like the one below. Click on the Start button in the smitRem window.

SmitRem.exe window

The program will create a folder on your desktop called "SmitRem"

Now, you should reboot your computer into Safe Mode. If you need help on getting into Safe Mode, see this tutorial.

Once your PC is in Safe Mode, open the SmitRem folder on your desktop. You will see a file within called RunThis.bat (or just RunThis). Double-click on that file, and the AntiVirusGold files will be deleted from your PC.

When it is complete, reboot your computer again.

If your desktop wallpaper is still a warning message, click Start, Control Panel and choose Display (it may be under the Appearance and Themes section). Go to the Desktop tab. Click on the Customize Desktop button. Next, go to the Web tab and uncheck anything that might be checked there (it will probably be called "Security Info"). Click OK and reboot your computer.

Next, run the Panda ActiveScan virus scan as detailed in Step 1 of our guide to Get Rid of Spyware, Adware, and Web Browser Hijackers. After that, you should now be free of Spy Trooper - however, you may have additional spyware on your PC. These things tend to travel in packs ;)

Go through the rest of the steps in the Get Rid of Spyware guide - only then can you be completely sure than your computer is clean from infection. Good luck!

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