The Problem with Spyware Removal Programs
By now, everyone and their grandma knows what spyware is, why its bad, and that they should remove it. A smaller number (although still a majority) even knows how to remove it. The problem comes with getting people remember to scan their systems. Even I, in all my geekness, forget — I realized today that it had been over a month since I had performed a scan.
So how do we get around this?
The easiest thing that comes to mind is to set up a Scheduled Task that automatically runs once every-so-often and does all of this for us. We can run Scheduled Tasks by clicking Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Scheduled Tasks. Then, working our way through the wizard, we can scroll down the list of installed programs, choose the one we want and click OK. Easy cheezy, right?
Not so fast. Simply setting Windows up to run our programs automatically is the equivilent of us double-clicking the program icon. When we come back to our computers after this Scheduled Task runs, all we’ll find is our spyware removal program running — eager to get started. Most users, at this point, will have something more pressing to do and simply exit the program.
The answer lies with Scheduled Tasks — we just have to use it differently.
The two most common spyware removal products, Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy, both allow command prompt parameters. What this means is we can initiate some automation when we run these programs from a command prompt. So instead of telling Scheduled Tasks to run our programs at a certain time, we can tell it to run a series of commands of which reference our program and the command line options for it. We do this by way of a batch file.
Here’s how I set this up on my home machine:
1) I opened Notepad and typed in the following DOS commands:
cd “C:\Program Files\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware 2007\”
Ad-Aware2007.exe /Update /Smart /Clean /NoQuarantine
Two simple lines of instruction tells our OS to first change the target directory to the one where Ad-Aware 2007 lives, and secondly to run the executable with 4 distinct options: to update the definitions file (always important); to run a smart scan; to clean any problems it finds and to fully delete any of those problems (as opposed to simply quarantining them). I then clicked File > Save As and typed in “AdAware.bat” (including the quotes!) to save this text file as a batch file.
Then, I went back to Scheduled Tasks and started up its New Task Wizard. Once I got to the point where I choose the program, I instead browsed to find the AdAware.bat file I had just created. Next, I plugged in all the usual information like when and how often I want it to run, etc. and finished out the wizard. Now, every Monday at 3:00 a.m., Ad-Aware runs on my machine, updates its definitions and cleans out any infections it finds.
With Spybot S&D, I did the same thing. Here’s the contents of the batch file I created for it:
cd “C:\Program Files\Spybot – Search & Destroy”
SpybotSD.exe /minimized /autoupdate /autoimmunize /autocheck /autofix /autoclose
Note the “autoclose” switch. Spybot includes the option of closing itself out after finishing so that the end user may not even know that anything happened during the night.
So, why do this? Do you have that friend or family member you’re always removing spyware for? Or doing simple computer stuff? Planting a couple of batch files and using Scheduled Tasks to run them for you will save you LOTS of time and trouble.
I’d encourage you to look at the help files of programs you find yourself running quite a bit to see if they have any command line parameters. I have a feeling you’d be surprised at how many do and how many options you truly have for automation.
