How to remove AntiVirus XP 2008 Virus, free

While surfing the net for song lyrics, I was infected by this virus. Funny, my free Avira anti-virus detected the symptoms while Norton did not. In case you’ve been infected, here’s a good information about this virus and a simple procedure to remove it.

What is Antivirus2008?
AntiVirus2008 or AntiVirus XP 2008 is a misleading application that may give exaggerated reports of threats on the computer. For example, “you computer has been infected by 3000++ viruses!”.

It could infect Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows XP computers.

The user is then prompted to pay for a full license of the application in order to remove the errors.
- symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2008-050906-3727-99&tabid=2

How to remove this virus, manually?

Removing this virus is quite simple…
1. Go to “C:\Windows\System32” folder then arrange files according to date. Look for the newly installed “.exe” files, it could be “rhc5frj0e32v.exe”, “lphc1frj0e32v.exe”, and other associated files, then delete it. To make things much simpler, right click on the drive C: and Search for “*.exe files”. After the search, arrange the “searched .exe” files according to “date modified” to list down the newly installed applications. Delete these “newly installed files”, TAKE NOTE, THE “NEWLY INSTALLED” FILES ONLY!. Make sure that you “end task” these applications in the “task manager” before deleting it.
2. Go to “C:\Program Files” and delete “rhc5frj0e32v” folder. This is where they installed the malicious program. From time to time, the author of this virus might change the file name and folder name of this virus, but if you know your computer well, you’ll also know which folder in your program files was created without your consent.
3. Go to the registry by typing “regedit” in the “Run” at the “Start Menu”. On HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, find “rhc5frj0e32v” and “lphc1frj0e32v” and delete all entries that are associated to these files.
4. That’s all! You’ll just need to clean up the remaining mess by deleting/removing the Antivirus2008 shortcuts in your start-up menu.