Despite having Sophos antivirus, and avoiding anywhere dodgy on t'internet, my laptop has a fake "virus checker" calling itself "XP internet security 2010". It's causing all kinds of issues. A search on the web shows that it's a known problem, but I can't get rid of it. Most of the stuff I can find mentions an "av.exe" file, that I don't have. Anyone else seen this? Any easy removal tricks? And, yes, I've Googled until I'm blue in the face......

Thanks, Phil

Was other ones like this some time ago -think they were more of spyware -I picked up something like it and Avast wouldn't shift it ,Malwarebytes wouldn't run .Eventualy got rid of ut with Superantispyware .You could look for a removal tool on Symantec -

http://www.symantec.com/norton/security_response/index.jsp

Try a google -mine turned up fact that it's similar to Internet Security , a malware thingy , and there's how tos to remove it .

also try combofix, google it and download from bleepingcomputer.com . I have had great success with it where others have failed.

www.malwarebytes.com will probably fix it!

I had that onone of my many laptops. What a sod to get rid of.

Formatted and running Linux now......

Like breath of fresh air

Second vote for malwarebytes. Gets rid of most nasties like that!

If you check your start up you will probably find av exe,just deleteit from running at start up an all should be well.

I have not had this, not running windows and all that, but I advised someone who had something similar.

It is sophisticated, preventing downloads and blocking removal tools with remarkable success.

You might have luck with the above approaches, but my first bit of advice would be to backup your files. NOW. And prepare what you may need for a re-install.

I've cleared this one twice now, not from my own machine I may add lol

http://www.2-spyware.com/remove-xp-internet-security-2010.html

I used these instruction which did then trick

When it comes to the bit about dl'ing the remover for XP internet security 2010, skip it and use malware bytes instead.

The key part of the process is in the notepad file doing this part allows you too run exe files to let you scan for the problem.

HTH

www.malwarebytes.com will probably fix it!

Problem is that chances are it will prevent malwarebytes from running - side effect of the malware -I found that ,so resorted to Superantispyware .

I've got rid of this one from a friends laptop using AVG Free...

Steve

Problem is that chances are it will prevent malwarebytes from running - side effect of the malware -I found that ,so resorted to Superantispyware .

But if you run the script in my link it will let you run the exe's again eg MWbytes etc

Thanks to all for the suggestions -Malware Bytes did thr trick. I had to follow a trick from bleepingcomputer, and change the registry settings so it could run, but it took around 2 1/2 hours to scan the C: drive and cleared it up for me.

The trouble with this kind of thing is that I'm a bit out of touch with the Windows world these days, and it's hard to tell if some of the Google results will lead you to something even worse!

Anyway, thanks to the Briskoda IT masive for the help.

Phil :yes:

Install McAfee's free site advisor plugin

http://www.siteadvisor.com