Ramblings of an old Doc

 

Norton’s put out a very powerful new tool for our armamentarium: Norton Power Eraser.

It’s free, and you should probably have it onboard to be used only when all other methods of removing malware, viruses, root kits, trojans and other crimeware have failed.

I installed it, and chose to scan for Rootkits as well, so it rebooted my system but gave ample time to save what I was working on (this article). The scan was very fast, and Power Eraser also presented a report of it’s findings. You can with a single click check these findings against Norton’s knowledge base and “Fix” only if you choose. A “Restore Point” is created before that if you choose (I’d recommend doing so).

Norton adds this warning:

“Because the Norton Power Eraser uses aggressive methods to detect these threats, there is a risk that it can select some legitimate programs for removal. You should use this tool very carefully, and only after you have exhausted other options.”

 

You can download it here:  Norton Power Eraser Download Link

More about it courtesy of tazgecko: http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Protection-Blog/What-s-driving-Norton-Power-Eraser/ba-p/292256


Comments
on Jan 25, 2011

 

on Jan 25, 2011

Great link, taz! Added it to the OP! Thanks

on Jan 25, 2011

Thank you for posting this Doc. I am sure it will help a lot of people. I just want to echo your caution in being careful how you use it. make sure you know what your doing when you allow it do delete certain things. For example I ran a scan just out of curiosity to see what it would detect. It found a few things on my computer and 2 of the things the program considered bad. Those where nouserpicture.exe and themeui.dll. I happen to know both of those are a false positive. It is still a good program though. Just be careful when deleting files with this or any other security program for that matter. I remember once using Tuneup Utilities and it screwed my computer up so bad I had to reformat my drive.

on Jan 25, 2011

Same happened to me as well with Tuneup Utilities, Ken.

I ran a scan but themesui.dll didn't come up on mine. Did you check with Norton about it? I did and they ok'd the ones I checked.

With any AV one has to be careful. It's a screening tool that can give false positives and false negatives. You have to know what you're doing. No program can do that for you.

on Jan 25, 2011

I remember once using Tuneup Utilities and it screwed my computer up so bad I had to reformat my drive.

 

Are you sure it was Tuneup Utilities JC (and Doc)?  I have been using it for some years now and have never had a problem.  Might it have been something else, possibly and existing issue that Tuneup Utilities tried to fix, but could not and things got screwed up?  An older version of it?

Tuneup Utilities is an excellent program, so I just cannot imagine this happening.

on Jan 25, 2011

......or you can use the original Norton Power Eraser..... it was called Norton 2002.

What it would do was break the Bits service so as to require you to reinstall SP2 [XP] ..... and if you didn't have that on disk....and you were hoping to update/dl it .... well you couldn't.... because your Bits was broken .... so ....best option was a reformat....cos not only did that get your bits back....it also got rid of Norton 2002.

Erased....

on Jan 25, 2011
on Jan 25, 2011

Norton?? Oh brother...

on Jan 25, 2011

That was 8 years ago. I've run it on my machine and all's well. I wouldn't suggest something untried to you.

Also, Norton Internet Security has been rated #1 by PC Magazine... As Confucius said, "That was Zen. This is now."

on Jan 25, 2011

I am going to wait until lunch to do a root kit, but the regular scan turned up a bunch of false alarms.  Most of them already known to me (as some tools look like trojans/crackers).  But one of interest is the OUtlook Viewer.  It did not really give any information on why it was flagging it, only that it was "potentially bad" for some reason.

on Jan 25, 2011

Did you check it with Norton?