How to Get Rid of PC Privacy Cleaner

PC Privacy Cleaner is a spyware application that infects computers through Trojan viruses and pretends to be a legitimate anti-virus and anti-spyware program. It generates system messages and scan results warn you of present and possible future infections on your hard drive. It also tries to scare users into buying the PC Privacy Cleaner product to remove the mentioned threats. However, paying for PC Privacy Cleaner will not remove any spyware or viruses, as it is a fake, including the messages. To get rid of this parasite, you will have to stop it from running in the background, and then delete its registry entries and files.

Instructions

End System Process

1. Press "Ctrl," "Shift" and "Esc" keys at the same time to start the Task Manager.

2. Click on the "Processes" tab and scroll through the list and click on "PcPrivacyCleaner.exe" system process.

3. Click on the "End Process" button to stop the spyware from running and close the Task Manager.

Delete Registry Entries

1. Go to the "Start" menu and click on "Run."

2. Type "regedit" in the utility's search field an click on "OK" to start the Registry Editor.

3. Find and delete the following registry entries:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\PcPrivacyCleaner
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Pc Privacy Cleaner
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{82297D11-31C1-40B1-960A-BDF40B3B365F}
   HKEY_CURRENT_USERS\Software\Pc Privacy Cleaner
   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\pcsd
   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{82297D11-31C1-40B1-960A-BDF40B3B365F}
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Pc Privacy Cleaner
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Pc Privacy Cleaner

4. Close the Registry Editor after you are done.

Remove Files and Folders

1. Click on the "Start" menu and select "Search."

2. Check the "All Files and Folders" option and select the hard drive to be searched (usually C:) from the drop-down menu.

3. Type "PcPrivacyCleaner.exe" and press "Enter" to begin search; delete all of the found results.

4. Repeat the search and delete process for "PcPrivacyCleaner.lnk," "pcsd.dll,"
   "Pc Privacy Cleaner," "Pc Privacy Cleaner.lnk," "[RANDOM FILE NAME].tmp" and "log."

5. Restart your computer after deleting the last file

Tips & Warnings

• Always back up important data before you begin manually removing spyware.

• Delete only the registry entries shown as accidental removal of any other key or value might disable your operating system.

References

• XP-Vista.com: PC Privacy Cleaner Removal