Rundll32.exe application not found because of Windows Antivirus Pro/Windows Police Pro: What to do

Finally!  A quick registry fix for the Windows Antivirus 2009 Police Pro Security-whatever virus.

This thing is monsto-annoying.  The thing will eat your Internet connection, it will smack your anti-malware software and it will kidnap your AV and hold it hostage.  This virus sucks big-time.  Even if you clean your system, the repair renders your system pretty much inoperable (in any useful sense).

How do I clean it?  Typically, I’ll use the Kaspersky rescue CD – burn it using CDBurnerXP (it’s an ISO file).

So here’s the deal: Usually, when you clean up your system using the typical clean-up techniques and then restart, you’ll get the following error at boot:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\rundll32.exe

Application not found.

Super duper.

Then when you try to run any executable, you get the following (this does not show ‘.exe’ rather ‘.html’ pictured below.  I didn’t get a proper screenshot because, well, you know, I couldn’t run any executable screen capture tools):

To fix this, you absolutely MUST have cleaned your system using your favorite (and hopefully effective) cleanup regiment.

• Click on ‘Start’> ‘Run’, then type ‘Notepad’ in the open field and press enter.  You will again get the prompt as seen above, but scroll down the list and click on ‘Notepad’, then click ‘OK’.

• Notepad will open with a bunch of gobbledygook (yes, that is my technical term, and I’m sticking with it).  Clear the contents by pressing [ctrl]+[a] and then hit your delete key.  Type the following below EXACTLY as shown.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open\command]

@="\"%1\"%*"

• When you’ve typed this up, click ‘File’> ‘Save as’ and then save it as ‘registry.reg’ to your Windows Desktop.
• Close out of Notepad, then double-click the registry file you saved to your desktop.  When it asks if you want to import the registry key to your system, click ‘yes’.

That’s it, your exe file associations should now work again.