I keep getting a popup about a regisry cleaner - good or bad?

Question

My sister just gave me her old laptop and she apparently formatted it and just put windows xp on for me. I just installed and ran a virus scan but I still keep getting these pop ups about going to www.registrycleanerxp.com What is this? Should I do it or is it a bad thing?

Answer 1

That's adware. I suggest you download Ad-Aware SE and Spybot S&D (they’re free), install them, update them and run them. If either one doesn’t seem to be able to get rid of everything it reports finding, try running it again, this time in Safe Mode. Safe Mode often prevents the malware from running and protecting itself.

Also, turn off System Restore to evict any copies of bad stuff that might be lurking there.

To get into Safe Mode:

1.Log out and reboot your machine.
2.When the machine starts the reboot sequence, press the F8 key repeatedly.
3.Select Safe Mode from the resulting menu.
4.The machine will continue booting, but the Windows desktop will look different. You won't be able to see the Internet, for instance. Log in as Administrator. Administrator often has no password.
5.When you're finished, log out and reboot back into normal mode.

Update and run them regularly.

Good luck.

Answer 2

If you have not installed XP2 then this could be coming from Windows Messenger Service which is blocked by default in XP2 but not in XP.
See more info in link below and how to block WMS.
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2003/11/11/winxp_hacks.html

If you are using XP2 then use the program below to remove the malware causing the popups.
Download and Install Super Antispyware free. Reboot into Safe mode and Run SAS. Allow it to quarantine whatever it finds.
http://www.superantispyware.com/
How to Start Windows in Safe Mode:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial61.html

Answer 3

Your using Internet Explorer, this is a well known web browser that dumps all kinds of pop up advertising ads. It's the most commercially abused browser in existence and for a good reason, almost everyone has a Windows Operating system.

Answer 4

RegistryCleanerXP is a security risk registry cleaner, that may generate and show exaggerated reports of serious registry errors on the infected computer. The risk then prompts the user to purchase a commercial version of RegistryCleanerXP in order to fix registry faults. RegistryCleanerXP may be installed by trojan horses, so it is necessary to provide full virus and spyware scan on your computer.
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here are manual removal instructions:

Answer 5

BAD

Its smitfraud

How To Remove Registry Cleaner

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic79211.html

Answer 6

VERY BAD This is a spyware program.

Download and install Spybot: Search & Destroy

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html

Have it install the updates at the same time it downloads, then run.


You should always be running BOTH anti-spyware and anti-virus software. They are quite different things, but both are very important to have.

Answer 7

Look it up online. There is a known spyware out there that does this. There are free sites online with instructions on how to get rid of it. I had it myself 6 months ago or so.

Answer 8

It's probably phony. Those popup ads about registry cleaners and anti-spyware programs are mostly fake and are spyware.

Answer 9

Never respond to pop ups for stuff.

You are infected with Malware.

This should remove it: http://www.internetinspiration.co.uk/roguefix.htm

Answer 10

maybe a software installed in yr pc, just go to add and remove programms u can delete there.