avast! Virus Cleaner - free virus removal tool

[abdurrehman]

avast! Virus Cleaner is available free for everyuser. This tool will help you remove selected worm infections from yourcomputer.
Free virus & worm removal tool

If, despite all the security measures you take, your computer getsinfected by a virus or worm, it is necessary to disinfect your systemsomehow. While for some viruses the only 100% reliable method ofdisinfection is restoring your system from backups, for many commoninfections this is not really necessary and the virus/worm can beremoved quite easily.

Removing the infection
The worms often schedule themselves to be run automatically whenyou start your operating system; some of them even register themselvesto be run when any other application is started. Removing such a wormis not as simple as deleting it - when you just delete the worm file,your operating system might not be able to start your applications(such as Explorer) any more.

So, in order to properly remove the worm from your computer, it isoften necessary to make additional fixes in your system registry,delete the links from your Startup Folder etc. Here the avast! VirusCleaner comes - it will find and remove selected worms from yourcomputer, as well as fix the registry and startup items to make sureyour system will work correctly after the disinfection.

Many worms - when activated - create additional working files onyour hard disk. Even though these files alone are harmless, they areuseless and they should not be there. When avast! Virus Cleaner detectsand removes a known worm from your computer, its working/temporaryfiles are removed as well. The same applies for worm-specific registryentries etc.

List of known worms
avast! Virus Cleaner is currently (in version 1.0.211) able to identify and remove the following worm families:

* Win32:Badtrans [Wrm]
* Win32:Beagle [Wrm] (aka Bagle), variants A-Z, AA-AH
* Win32:Blaster [Wrm] (aka Lovsan), variants A-I
* Win32:BugBear [Wrm], including B-I variants
* Win32:Ganda [Wrm]
* Win32:Klez [Wrm], all variants (including variants of Win32:Elkern)
* Win32:MiMail [Wrm], variants A, C, E, I-N, Q, S-V
* Win32:Mydoom [Wrm] (variants A, B, D, F-N - including the trojan horse)
* Win32:Nachi [Wrm] (aka Welchia, variants A-L)
* Win32:NetSky [Wrm] (aka Moodown, variants A-Z, AA-AD)
* Win32:Nimda [Wrm]
* Win32:Opas [Wrm] (aka Opasoft, Opaserv)
* Win32:Parite (aka Pinfi), variants A-C
* Win32:Sasser [Wrm] (variants A-G)
* Win32:Scold [Wrm]
* Win32:Sinowal [Trj] - variants AA, AB
* Win32:Sircam [Wrm]
* Win32:Sober [Wrm], variants A-I, J-K
* Win32:Sobig [Wrm], including variants B-F
* Win32:Swen [Wrm], including UPX-packed variants
* Win32:Tenga
* Win32:Yaha [Wrm] (aka Lentin), all variants
* Win32:Zafi [Wrm] (variants A-D)

Disinfection process in detail
By default, avast! Virus Cleaner does all the work automatically.When you start it and press the "Start scanning" button, the followingwill be done:

1. The operating system memory will be scanned, and if any knownworm is found, the worm process is terminated - thus avoiding furtherspreading. If it is not possible to terminate the worm process (itcould happen e.g. with Nimda worm that uses a fake library to runinside other processes), the worm will be deactivated in memory to stopits spreading.
2. Your local hard disks will be scanned.
3. The "startup items" (such as the system registry, StartupFolder(s), etc.) will be scanned. References to worms found in memoryor on disk will be removed or fixed.
4. Infected files, identified in point 2, will be removed or fixed (as needed).
5. Additional working/temporary files created by the identified worms will be removed.
6. If restarting the computer is needed to finish the disinfectionprocess (e.g. when a file could not be removed because it was currentlyin use, or if the deactivated worm process is still present), the useris notified and asked whether the restart should be done immediately.

For experienced users, various command-line arguments can be usedto customize the program behavior. The list of command-line argumentswill be displayed when started with /? parameter. Note: thecommand-line arguments are intended for experienced users only!Changing the default parameters may result in incomplete disinfectionthat may render your operating system nonfunctional, as noted above.

Important notes

1. During the scanning process, it is highly recommended not tostart any applications. As already pointed out, some worms will startautomatically when any other application is started. Running wormprocesses are terminated/deactivated only during the first phase of theavast! Virus Cleaner scanning; if you activate the worm again in themiddle of the scanning process (by starting another application, suchas Notepad, Explorer, ...), the worm will probably not be removed fromyour computer!
2. Turn off any resident (on-access) antivirus protection beforerunning avast! Virus Cleaner. avast! Virus Cleaner has to access theinfected files to be able to identify and remove them. The residentprotection, however, might not permit it - and the worm could not beremoved from your computer! Do not forget to activate the residentprotection again after avast! Virus Cleaner has finished thedisinfection.
3. avast! Virus Cleaner should be used in case you know orsuspect that your computer is infected. It is not meant as an antivirussolution for everyday use! Use e.g. avast! 4 Home/Professional toprotect your computer.
4. To work correctly, the Cleaner requires administratorprivileges when running on Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 operating systems.On an infected computer, however, it might not be wise to log in as aprivileged user (administrator) - it may help the worm to spread evenfurther. Therefore, you can start avast! Cleaner as a restricted userand enter the administrator login name and password directly into anavast! Virus Cleaner dialog; in such a case, the Cleaner will be runwith the privileged user access rights - however, the privileged userwill not be actually logged on, and none of his/her startup files willbe processed.

Solving other problems
If you have deleted a virus or worm file associated to a vital filetype - and now you cannot run your applications anymore, avast! VirusCleaner may help you as well. All you have to do is run avast! VirusCleaner "somehow". If, for example, only the association for .EXE fileshas been corrupted, you may run the avast! Virus Cleaner by renaming itto a .COM file. The other extensions you may try are .SCR, .BAT, .PIF(on Windows NT/2000/XP/2003, you may try .CMD as well). If none ofthese extensions works (Windows is still reporting "Cannot find'xyz.exe'" when you try to start the tool), you can use avast! VirusCleaner itself as a replacement for the missing file. However, you haveto know the name of the missing file to do that; if you know it, justrename the avast! Virus Cleaner file to the missing name (and move itto the corresponding folder, if necessary). Now, starting anyapplication should bring up avast! Virus Cleaner instead. As soon as itstarts, it detects that some of the vital file associations arecorrupted, reports the problem and allows you to fix it immediately.

Click here to download