How to Remove PC Scout | PC Scout Removal Guide
PC Scout is another rogue application with a similar look and feel to the Windows Security Center. (It’s also apparently a clone of the same family as ActiveSecurity (ActiveSecurity Removal) It likely installs through malware and the use of web popups. Once it’s installed on your system it tries to run at startup and run a scan of your hard drive for supposed viruses. It in fact (shockingly) always finds something to complain about and either exaggerates minor issues or claims you have viral infections when you really don’t. Of course, they can’t be bothered to remove the problems unless you purchase their software. The problem is that purchasing really doesn’t do much but line the pockets of the software writers. Read on for how to remove PC Scout.
Among the falsified alerts that PC Scout presents is the message as follows:
PC Scout detected the virus or the harmful program on your computer!
Internet Explorer is infected with worm Rootkit.Win32.Agent.pp. This worm can harm your computer.
It is a false warning and of course they use it to attempt to convince you that you need to purchase their software to fix the problem.
The most obvious would be to attempt to remove PC Scout through the control panel using the add/remove programs applet. Odds are that this will not completely remove the files that pc scout brings with it so your next best choice is to remove pc scout as follows:
Download malwarebytes antimalware from the virus removal toolkit page link. Try to install, update and run a scan with malwarebytes. If you are unable to install malwarebytes you have a few choices. 1) try renaming the installer file from mbam.exe to something completely different myfile.exe, then try to run the installer, update and scan. 2) try booting the machine in safe mode and then install, update and scan from safe mode. 3) follow the steps below for manual removal which start with killing of the processes associated with PC Scout using task manager. After the processes are terminated you should be able to install and run malwarebytes or you may opt to continue with manual removal of pc scout and then run it.
The following processes are associated with PC Scout and should be killed off using the task manager:
pcscout.exe
If you are unable to open the task manager you may need to copy and paste a copy of the taskmgr.exe executable and then rename it so that you can browse running processes. If you would like you may also attempt to use process explorer (find a link to it on the virus removal toolkit page) to kill of the running processes.
The following files and folders are associated with PC Scout, removal requires deleting the following:
%docs%\All Users\Desktop\PC Scout Support.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Desktop\PC Scout.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\PC Scout
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\PC Scout\PC Scout Support.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\PC Scout\PC Scout.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\PC Scout\Uninstall PC Scout.lnk
%progfiles%\PC Scout
%progfiles%\PC Scout\core.cga
%progfiles%\PC Scout\CoreExt.dll
%progfiles%\PC Scout\help.ico
%progfiles%\PC Scout\pcscout.exe
%progfiles%\PC Scout\Uninstall.exe
Even after a complete manual removal I would still install, update and run a full scan with malwarebytes antimalware and a reputable antivirus application. At this point you should have completed the manual removal of PC Scout.