How To Remove Windows Police Pro?
You might be wondering what Windows Police Pro is and secondly, you might be wondering how to properly remove it. There’s been a lot of talk about the mass spread of this virus and I want to provide some information about it because this virus ultimately might effect you.
First off, Windows Police Pro isn’t a program that you want to use towards protecting your computer operating system, specifically Windows. Windows Police Pro isn’t affiliate with Microsoft Corp. however, their site and software is designed to look like a Microsoft security tool, as shown in the example below:
Windows Police Pro is a malware program that can infect your computer and then pretend to scan your drives for viruses. The program will then inform you that your computer has a virus and it will then prompt you to purchase the full version of the software for removal of any viruses.
The program is initiated when users visit infected websites. A pop up window will inform the user that their computer has an infection and as soon as the user clicks “Ok” a fake scan will begin. A quick way to stop the process is to press Start + R, type “taskmgr” and press enter. From there, search the processes for “Windows Police Pro.exe” and select End Process.
Additionally, if you have Windows Police Pro Virus installed on your system, you’ll need to remove the files from your computer and entries from your registry. You can learn more the complete removal on Windows Police Pro by reading this article and this one too. Keep in mind, I did NOT use their “Free Scanner Download” and I do not recommend using it yourself. Simply read the articles if your computer is infected with Windows Police Pro and follow the removal steps.
If you notice that your website is infected with this virus, it is important to contact your host provider immediately. Failing to remove this virus from your server will eventually lead Google and other search engines to remove your site from their index. This, of course, could cost you your rankings and put a drastic damper on your traffic.
August 31st, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Why can’t someone publish the names and addresses of the criminals who put out the malware like Windows Police Pro. They take credit cards, so they can be tracked down. With some info on the miscreants, those infected can take legal action or self-help as appropriate.
September 1st, 2009 at 10:44 am
I saw that the other day when I visited a website, I immediately shut it down with the task manager and then ran a real virus scan. I hate Viruses and malware!
Excellent warning for those who haven’t seen this yet.
September 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 am
I tried both methods above. Trying to run regedit is blocked because Police Pro blocks all .exe files. I also downloaded Spyware Doctor, but it needs to call an update through an .exe file (dumb move guys!), which is also blocked by Police Pro. Basically, the machine is toast.
September 3rd, 2009 at 3:35 am
You need to end one more process, take a look here:
http://www.geekpolice.net/malware-removal-guides-f12/remove-windows-police-pro-removal-guide-t13546.htm
September 3rd, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Nasty bug but it can be removed. I blasted it with a combination of McAfee (run in safe mode) and Malwarebytes, although initially you have to disable its processes as described in the following:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-windows-police-pro
September 5th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I kept getting blocked by desote when I tried to run applications. Trick is to boot into safe mode with command prompt and then run things from there. I already had Malwarebytes’ installed and ran it through the command prompt. Worked like a charm.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
GOD this was a mess… I used another PC and slaved the HDD to it and scanned with both mcafee and Malwarebytes. They seemed to find it and kill it… BUT it messed up the ACL and made a total birds nest out of it. I did save the data and eventually just gave up and formatted. I feel the same way… we need to hunt them down like animals.
September 8th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Was attacked by this myself. Found that simply changing the name of the files in your program files to a different name helped eliminate the constant drawing of them by Windows Police Pro. After that, was able to get into regedit and other things necessary to eradicate.
Hope this helps,
C
September 11th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
how do i get this crap off my computer
September 12th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Ok. Malwarebytes is a free malware removal program that WILL kill this virus. Download it and write down the exact destination address. Can’t run the setup program (or any other .exe, for that matter)? Restart in “Safe Mode with command prompt. (restart and keep tapping f8 until the boot menu is displayed) From the command prompt, in safe mode, you can run the Malwarebytes setup program and them scan and remove this virus. Restart and you should be good to go.
September 17th, 2009 at 3:16 am
Windows Police Pro has infected my PC but I’ve tried these things and they didn’t work. At first I thought Malwarebytes got it but it came back. Now all I have is the desktop icon for WPP but it’s not active and it’s not showing up in add/remove programs. My computer is working fine except for the fact that when I google search random things, sometimes I get redirected to malicious sites and have to close. I am thinking this is an effect the virus had but I don’t know how to fix it. Running all my spyware/malware programs hasn’t helped. I’ve tried safe made and system restore already.
September 19th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
I tried several things from the articles. It wouldn’t let Malwarebytes instal even after I stopped both processes in Task Manager. Tried going to Safe Mode but I kept getting a blue screen saying Windows was shutting down because it detected a problem, so I couldn’t even get into Safe Mode. Guess I’ll need to have it reformatted. This is a bad one.
September 19th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
to those who can’t get rid of it; here’s my personal experience when this garbage visited me:
i have a 500GB external drive where i keep installers, docs, music, photos, bookmarks, display & email settings, etc….everything i don’t want to lose, EVER. in addition, i do regular backups (manual not automatic) of my system and save it to my external drive.
anyway, i completely formatted my hard drive & destroyed all traces with Acronis True Image (7 pass Guttman method; took a LONG time…10 hours…you don’t need to do this; Acronis costs about $70…you can just format when your Windows CD boots). next, i booted from my Windows CD and reinstalled my OS.
yes, this is a pain and takes an ungodly amount of time, but it was worth it to me to have a pristine machine, once again. the reinstallation of all my programs, importing all my settings, copying all my docs/music/pics, etc. was also very time consuming, but i’m done now so i can breathe easy.
Dell’s regular price for a 500GB external drive is $90.00, but i did some window shopping at amazon, bestbuy, compusa & microcenter & found a 160GB for around $40…i spoke to Dell & got the 500GB for $70; they didn’t have anything smaller & wanted my money so i got a nice deal. well worth having, to save all your important things.
unless you get a Mac, no one’s really safe from everything, IMHO. still, i like Windows because it has the most compatibility with anything i want to purchase.
September 19th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
I’ve tried downloading the removal program, but this goddamn Windows Police Pro won’t let me run it. What do I do?
September 20th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Aside from hunting the vermin down and castrating them, I may have found a fix. My computer was infected 9/19 by this one. It showed up again the next day, so here’s what I tried:
I restarted my puter in safe mode (hit f8 during startup). After opening, I opened MY COMPUTER, opened my C DRIVE and opened the folder WINDOWS POLICE PRO. I then deleted each item, one-by-one (I used the right-click delete) and when all were in the trash, I then opened up SYSTEM TOOLS and SYSTEM RESTORE (also from the Start button). I restored the system to a day 2 days before the infection (which you’ll find by checking PROPERTIES of the WINDOWS POLICE PRO .exe file – look for creation date). It APPEARS that all evidence of WINDOWS POLICE PRO is GONE! Before I started this, I also deleted ALL cookies that were present…just in case the infected site/page was still in there.
Don’t know if this will help, but it’s a little hard for me to download programs – free or not – since I’m stuck with dial-up.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:12 am
Cecilia said,”Change the the name of the files in your program files to a different name”. It was so helpful, because at least I could see my screeen. Then I used another safe computer and downlorded(free) the one of anti-virus softs to USB. (For download, never use your affected computer) Then transfered to “Windows Police Pro-affected comuter’s desktop and let it run. It worked well. You can downlord freely, but it costs about 50 dollars. Good luck!
September 21st, 2009 at 10:07 am
I also got hit with Windows Police pro. I was able to get rid of it by using the Enigma software program, and my AVG Anti-Virus.
Everything works fine on the laptop, but I can’t get to the internet. If I go to the command line and ping a site, I get a return.
I even downloaded Firefox on another computer and burned it onto a CD and was able to load it. That would not work either.
Any ideas?
September 21st, 2009 at 6:03 pm
To anyone infected with this malware – maybe some people may not recommend this, but I deleted all files from windows\system32\ that were created on the day my computer was infected and emptied the recycle bin. Then I was able to download MBAM and remove Windows Antivirus Pro/Windows Police Pro. Prior to deleting these files I could not access add/remove, system restore, download anything, or visit most sites explaining how to rid infected computers of this virus.
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Yeah I have a client machine that has this nasty bug and it’s new too me as well. I tried just about everything possible and spent too many hours. My last option is always save the data and restore,re-imaged the machine. This is another reason I always tell my customers to never to save data on C: drive period. Use an external drive for your saved data. Scan your your machine prior to connecting your external hard drive. And another thing these viruses, spyware, adware directly attacking Windows OS. I’m done with Windows OS, I run Linux and MAC OS X. I know everyone is not up to speed on these other OS’s but I guess you learn or deal with what you got.
September 24th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
i have one hell of a problem,i cannot use system restore(it shows there are no restore points whatsoever)i cannot open anything except basic windows like controll panel,browsers and run and i dont have any backups on a disk and i really dont want to loose all the stuff ive goten,i have pc cillin but it cannot fix anything and i cannot afford another anti-virus or anti-spyware at all,so can someone PLEASE help me?
September 25th, 2009 at 10:43 am
The easy way is to reboot and hold down the F8 key to get into safe mode.
Choose safe mode with command prompt. When the black screen comes up, enter this command: cd windws, then del svchast.exe, then cd system32, then del dddesot.dll, then reboot and it is gone.
I hope this helps!
September 25th, 2009 at 10:46 am
the last file should have been dddesut.dll – sorry Good Luck!
October 20th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Here is a quick way to remove Windows Police Pro. If you have IE 7.0 simply google Windows internet explorer downloads and select IE 8.0. It will install automatically over IE 7.0 and actually searches for and removes any malware prior to installing IE 8.0 If you have IE 8.0 already, download the executable for IE 8.0 to your desktop, unintstall IE from Add/Remove programs and then launch the install exe from your desktop.
Don’t waste your time trying to remove Windows Police Pro from the registry because all the key files are in use and cannot be deleted. Good luck.
WW
October 21st, 2009 at 1:10 am
This program has morphed into something more dangerous. It installed itself to such a point that I can no longer boot my computer – I continually get the dreaded blue screen.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:16 am
My father in law tried to purchase this windows police pro thing a number of times (he is older and didn't realize it was actually the virus) what should he do???
October 21st, 2009 at 9:26 am
I'm having this same problem. Have you found anything that works?
October 21st, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Knoppix might get you in to access your data (NOT YOUR PROGRAMS) so you can move it to a external USB drive or network share.
Then DBAN, format and reinstall windows.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:51 am
I just had to spend 3 hours yesterday fixing a user's PC infected with this malware. I had to use a combination of several suggested fixes. I ended the process first, then I deleted the Program files folders. I then ran spybot several times until nothing was being found. I also ran ad-aware but it didnt find anything. I went into safe mode and edited the registry by finding 'windows police pro' and deleting all of the affected entries. I was then able to install malwarebytes which totally cleansed the PC. I was not able to install malwarebytes initially. I also tried renaming the .exe installation file of malwarebytes to .com but it won't install.
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Nothing worked what says here for me. I've manually searched 'window police pro' and deleted all files, reinstalled XP on my laptop by selecting 'restart' and surprisingly it worked!!
Just simply take all backup before and reinstall everything otherwise it's just waste of time!
January 25th, 2010 at 3:13 am
How about you install Ubuntu Linux, instead of Windows? There are no viruses for Linux, its extremely user friendly, and its free! Legally free!
January 25th, 2010 at 3:21 am
Actually cake, even Macs are not 100% virus proof. The truly safest operating system out there is a Linux/OpenBSD operating system. There is a linux operating system that is more user friendly than Macs, and is 100% secure. That O/S is called Ubuntu. I use it, and it works beautifully
February 19th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
wow thx, this really helped me. not that i had the virus but a friend of mine asked me about this a couple of days ago
April 4th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
I've had this problem as well, and I get rid of it after I go into Safe Mode. The Achilles Heel of this seems to be it's either telling windows it's an exe or a service, and going into Safe Mode disables it. Then you can do what you need to do.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
The easiest way to remove this bug is to go to an un-infected computer that has spybot S&D on it, (probably another spyware program would work) run an update, then copy the program onto a flash drive and cary it to the computer you want to clean. Open spybot S& D from the flashdirve and run it. Since Police pro renders your spyware programs useless, by bringing it over on a flashdrive it can't see it until it is too late. Presto, spybot locates the bad boy can remove it.
May 25th, 2010 at 4:50 am
Hey, hopefully someone can make use of this
If you are having issues running virus scanners whilst your computer is turned on, try to start into 'Safe Mode'.
If you're using a version of Windows, you'll be able to do this. (Windows XP, Windows Vista & Windows 7)
Safe Mode:
Turn computer off
Turn computer on whilst tapping F8. When prompted select 'safe mode with networking'
When prompted, click Yes & start into Windows as normal.
December 15th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
This is an amazing information. I got the same problem with windows. Your solutions really worked.