Rogue anti-spyware application: Privacy Center (removal guide)

Hi

Thanks for the Trojan remover for Privacy Centre, some collateral damage though!! There are no icons on desktop nor a Start menu or anything at all along bottom of the screen. Even the Windows button does nothing!! Do you have any advice on restoring these items please?

Kind regards

Ed

About to use the Trojan remover – hope I don’t get the same problem as Ed.

I just had the samw rouge software a couple of days ago, open task manager and end the process it runs under ex: ” privacycenter.exe” and it will close then use task manager again but this time goto ” run new task…” and type ” control Panel” and goto your ” add-remover programs” and uninstall it then restart your PC then boom , your fine.

Ed, PCenter also specifies itself as the “shell” with which the system starts. Normally, this shell is explorer. Press Ctrl-Shift-Esc to bring up the taskmanager. Go to the applications tab, press “new task”, and from that window, run “explorer.exe”. That should bring up your familiar Windows desktop. Then, start the registry editor and go to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. There will be a value “Shell” that points to something like “C:\Program Files\PCEnter\pc.exe”. Remove that key to restore the normal explorer shell.

Thanks a bunch!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What will marketing think of next?!?
This one was easy to fix. I just started messing with stuff (Task Mgr was all I could do) and got it all back together pretty quick. I noticed there was an uninstall.exe for this one. Of course I don’t trust something malicious like this. I’ll go back and double check things tonight with what ya’ll said to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Thanks.
There is a Hell for Hitler hackers.

I hate to admit it, but this one burned me today and I am in the IT profession. I was on YouTube and told that FLASH needed to be updated. The scary thing about this is that when you reboot, PCENTER is the only thing that runs. No Windows Explorer, no toolbar, no START/RUN.

The way that I fixed this was CTRL/ALT/DELETE to Task Manager. Go to the Applications tab and kill PCENTER. Click the “new task” button at the bottom of Task Manager. Type “explorer.exe”. This will bring up Windows Explorer. The best option is first to delete in c:\Program Files\ the PCENTER folder and all it’s contents. Then go to Start/Accessories/System Restore Point and restore to your last good point. In my case I had a Restore Point from 5:00 AM this morning. This will remove all registry entries created by PCENTER.

Thank you so much. Now I remember “updating” Flash last night…I came home to find this crap. The fix was really easy, though, and it doesn’t appear as though I lost anything. Thank you so so much!

When I try to delete the PCenter files…it says access denied because it is in use…help!

My Dad got burned by this, my issue: PCENTER is the only window that appears. No Windows Explorer, no toolbar, no START/RUN and when I try to bring up the task manager, a window pops up stating “Task manager has been disabled by the administrator.” Must be a newer more malicious version.

hanako66 have you tried pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del and see if it´s there I got I about 4h ago, but I found it and Uninstalled it. When I got it I started my computer then it said something like “Serious system error …”. But as I said I was allowed to uninstall it!

i simply used the control panel to safely remuve it and its totally gone no trace of anny of that shit on my computre. do u still think there will be a risk? all of this thrue a update of flashplayer shit….

OMG. Can I say this again? OMG!!! I caught this virus like a week ago and, it was the most evil thing i had ever seen in my life. I mean it was completely diabolical! If satan himself were a virus, he’d be PCENTER. it COMPLETELY TOOK OVER my computer, all I had was a black screen and this “darn” (trying to be civil here, lol) PCENTER screen loading itself over and over again every time i turned on the computer,crashing my memory and the entire computer.It wouldn’t even let me get into windows. I tried that going to the task manager thing, that’s all it would let me do anyway, but when u would go to try to run my virus programs, or any program for that matter, they were not even there listed. Pure f***ing evil. I had to reprogram my laptop, luckily, mine comes with a backup, if it weren’t for that, it would’ve been yesterdays trash, or a big pain in the butt bill to fix. All I can say is I hope you have all your stuff backed up and pray it doesn’t crash your system completely!!! If you can even load any help/virus removal tool, do it and quickly!!!

Many thanks for the clear instructions. A daughter at college phoned up with this problem and was most impressed that I could fix it (thanks to your notes

I got this vile piece of garbage myself, removed it thanks to the help here. It seems to be completely gone, though most of the time my monitor will not come on at all- just a black screen (like the video card has failed). Multiple resets will eventually restore the monitor, but I have no idea what could be killing it now that PCENTER is gone. Any clues?

I hope they catch those responsible for this travesty of software, and burn them at the stake. I’ll be there with a can of kerosene to help it along!

Well, i deleted the PCenter files and the agent.exe, but my computer slowed down dramatically! Anyone know how to fix this?

The article on antibiotics are very good.

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