I got struck by the "MS Removal Tool" misleading app today. While it prevented me from firing up my Task Manager or Control Panel (my first thought was to see all running programs, see if I could identify it, and shut it off), thankfully it did not prevent me from opening my Norton 360 main screen and Startup Manager. I looked at the list on the manager (see below) and saw one item on it that had a bizarre name and identified by only a few users (last item listed, I circled it in red).
Here is the pop-up after I clicked on the app's name ...
Please note that when the "MS Removal Tool" first showed up on my comp and when I first fired up my Norton 360 Centre, under "Activity", it did say that this file did perform one action (it's disabled right now, please read on).
And here's what it says when I clicked on "locate this file" ...
I have NOT touched anything in there.
Anyway, after this awful little application took up home in my comp, my first reaction was to shut off the computer.
Oh, by the way, I'm running Vista Home Premium, Norton 360 4.0 Premier Edition.
I turned my computer on and not only was the program still there, I could not run anything else (plus it halted running whatever else was in the start-up list that came after this nasty little program started up). Couldn't get into Task Manager, nor Control Panel, nor other utilities I have and trust. It didn't load my desktop wallpaper either or my sidebar.
I opened Norton 360 Startup Manager again and turned the On to Off for that bizarre filename.
I shut down again.
That bizarre filemane must be the "MS Removal Tool" executable, as when I turned my computer on again, here I am with a perfectly running computer, no incessant pop-up messages trying to get me to buy their tool and I have no problems running anything, including Control Panel, Task Manager, etc.
I came online immediately to look for assistance to get rid of the rogue app, and am confused as to what direction I should take.
This page says just go ahead and run the Norton Power Eraser (but they don't say if you should do it in Safe Mode) ...
http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-360/MS-Removal-Tool-Virus/m-p/424614/highlight/true#M43996
This one talks about running Norton Power Eraser and DOES say use Safe Mode ...
http://us.norton.com/support/kb/web_view.jsp?wv_type=public_web&docurl=20100914184709EN&ln=en_US
This page, they don't seem sold on Power Eraser ...
And this page says don't use Norton Power Eraser, but says to use other tools and to poke around and delete various files (and I don't know how keen I am on manually poking around my file system or registry) ...
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-ms-removal-tool
How on earth do I figure out what option is right .. best ... safest?
Thank you for any/all advice.
PS. I've already downloaded the Power Eraser, but I have NOT run it.