MalwareBytes Anti-Malware Won’t Run? Here’s How To Fix It
August 30, 2009 – 8:28 pm | by Dave Bonds![MalwareBytes-Anti-Malware-Logo[1]](http://eastbaypcrepair.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/MalwareBytes-Anti-Malware-Logo1.png "MalwareBytes-Anti-Malware-Logo[1]"){kind=logo}
I can’t stress enough how important it is to keep your anti-virus software up to date, and also use an anti-malware program such as MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. These two programs work together in tandem simply because your anti-virus program won’t detect some “malware” programs, as they are not technically viruses, just malicious software.
Often times these programs disguise themselves as anti-virus programs, I’ve had numerous calls about exactly this type of problem just in the last several weeks. Some of the names of these “Rogue” Anti-virus programs are: Antivirus 2009, Personal Antivirus and many more are listed on Wikipedia: Rogue security software
Usually, I’ve found that I can simply run MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (MBAM), UPDATE! then run a scan, and it will detect the problem and is able to remove them. However this latest one, Personal Antivirus 2009 (PAV09), was quite a headache and took a while before I could even do anything to remove it. The program would not allow me to install MBAM, so I rebooted to safe mode, however, this program had installed some hook into the OS that prevented me from installing even in safe mode. Stuck.
So, after some Google searching, I found this on BleepingComputer, it suggested to change the name of the .exe to something completely unrelated. It worked. Awesome. Of course, the .exe of the program itself needed to be changed as well. So I changed it to a random string of letters.exe. And it STILL wouldn’t work!
Apparently, this malware is detecting a certain runtime or signature of the executable and immediately killing it, regardless of the name. After a few minutes of thinking, I decided to try an experiment, right click on the exe file (now renamed), and click the “Compatibility” tab, and under compatibility mode (this was Windows XP, but should work in XP or newer) select to “Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows 2000″. And…
It worked!
So, I guess I outsmarted the malware by tricking MBAM into thinking it was running under Windows 2000, making it undetectable by the malware program. And so, all said and done, MBAM was finally able to remove it, and the PC is working great. Hope this will help some other PC techs out there, when you don’t have the option to just wipe the drive and start fresh!
5 Responses to “MalwareBytes Anti-Malware Won’t Run? Here’s How To Fix It”
Dued. You are a life saver. Ran into the exact same issue. SOLUTION WORKS PERFECT.
Many thanks.
I tried what you suggested, it ran for about 3 seconds then crashed(as usual) I’m at a loss to know what to do next
It seems to be deleting it from memory and then changing the program to a DOS type program, and then it wont run
Wow.. I wish I knew what to do for that one. Sounds like that system is pretty infected.
In a case like that, your best option is to tell the customer to back up any important data and do a low-level format on the hard drive. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Good Luck!
It seems to be th only solution.
Thanks for you help, anyway.