Repeating Alerts Driving You Crazy?

Frequently, unwanted programs come with partners or in groups which are designed to protect and reactivate each other. Even if you tell Scotty to remove and kill a Startup Program, another partner program may replace the registry entry corrected by WinPatrol.

WinPatrol will warn you again which could drive you crazy. If WinPatrol detects the same program repeating itself, Scotty will try and automatically "Disable" this program so it doesn't continue to annoy you.  Look at our list of Startup Programs and instead of using Remove, try selecting and click Disable. This should at least stop the annoying messages.

If you've reached this page you may have been infected with malware but don't panic. Some legitimate programs use similiar tricks. Use the steps below to manually remove the annoying program. These steps help explain how to find and remove all the partner programs.  Having WinPatrol installed before you're attacked makes removal easier but not impossible. If the program is a legitimate program it may work best to find the auto start option or Uninstall the program via the Windows Control Panel, Add/Remove or Uninstall applet.

The instructions below may be easier than you think.

Using WinPatrol to Make it Go Away.

1. Close down or Exit all the known applications that you have running on your computer. This will help you narrow down the offending programs.
   
   
2. Open the main WinPatrol tabbed interface by double-clicking on the scotty icon in the lower right hand corner of the screen.
   Or launch WinPatrol Explorer from the Windows Start button -> Programs -> WinPatrol Explorer
   
   
3. You can stop alert messages by right-clicking on the WinPatrol system tray icon and selecting Exit. The system tray icon allows you to Exit the WinPatrol monitoring component but will still allow you to use the tabbed interface to performace the necessary clean up.
   
   
4. Click the Active Tasks tab to check what programs are still listed.
   
   Sort the Active Task list by "First Detected" column. Files that were installed on the same day/time are most likely working together to replicate each other.
   You may see multiple suspicious programs.
   Some programs may appear to have randomly created filenames. That's a clue to possible mawlare.
   Frequently, malicious programs will be too lazy to fake a company name or copyright information. This isn't always true but may be an additional indicator.
   
   WinPatrol allows you to Kill multiple tasks with one action.  Hold down the CTRL key to select several tasks at once and click to select and highlight each suspicious task.
   Adobe has been using a trick to delay one of their partner apps 10 minutes to purposely decieve users.
   
5. Click on the Kill Task button. This will hopefully shut down all suspicious tasks.  If you accidently kill a legitimate task it won't be deleted and it can be restarted when you reboot.
   
   
6. Once the programs are no longer running you should be able to remove the unwanted programs from the Startup Programs list. If you've been able to kill all of the partner programs the Startup, Service or IE Helper listing will not be recreated. Once removed we recommend rebooting and use WinPatrol to verify no unwanted Startup Programs are still around.
   
   
7. Click on the WinPatrol Hidden Files tab and again sort by First Detected and see if any suspicious new files exist. We don't recommend monitoring Hidden files because many programs create  hidden data files. This list still may be useful in finding malious partner programs.
   
   
   
8. Take a look at IE Helpers and Scheduled Tasks to see if you see any unwanted programs. While the Startup Program list is the most common entry point these locations have also been known to store ways to keep programs on your computer.
   
   

"Delete File on Reboot"
If after trying to remove suspicious or dangerous programs you find it still will not go away, right-click on the title of the program and select "Delete File on Reboot." This action will take place the next time you re-boot. The file will be deleted before Windows starts so it won't be able to recreate the unwanted program.
There is no way to recover the file once it is deleted this way so use this feature only when you are absolutely sure the file is unwanted.

If you've been successful, we recommend upgrading to WinPatrol PLUS to show your support and give forward to others who may experience the same frustration. Having WinPatrol PLUS can prevent repeating alerts before they start.
    Upgrade to WinPatrol PLUS     
 One time fee!  $29.95

Just so you know you're not alone. In the last year the following apps have led the way in annoying anyone who tried to remove them.