hilfelogo.jpg


aawsmall256w.jpg Getting started...


This is a small example on how to set up Ad-aware, creating a backup, excluding items and finally  
removing detected spyware components.As you'll see, Ad-aware is pretty easy to use.  

During the installation, an icon group has been created in your start menu.  
Please run Ad-aware by clicking the appropriate icon.  

The Ad-aware titlescreen shows three buttons which lead to different sections:  

butn1.jpg ..For a quick start using your default scanning settings, click this button.  
 
butn2.jpg ..Use this option to organize, restore or delete your backups.  
 
butn3.jpg ..Click this button to open the preferences menu.  


·Setting the scanning options  


When you start Ad-aware 5.0 the first time, no sections to scan are specified.  
Select which sections you want Ad-aware to scan in the list at the left side(see the image below).  
For the beginning, you should select the memory-scan, both registry scans and the drive where your windows installation resists.  
It is not necessary to always scan all drives, but recommended from time to time.  
Your scanning settings will be stored and used the next time when Ad-aware is started  
If you have Ad-aware autostarting with windows, the same settings will be used.  
 
Note: The only exception is, if you run Ad-aware from the explorer by right-clicking a drive or folder.  
In this case only the particular drive\folder will be scanned, but your scanning settings will not be overwritten and used again when Ad-aware is started regulary the next time.  


 
A grayed icon means that some, but not all subsections are selected.  
For example, check the "My computer" icon to quickly set Ad-aware for a complete system scan.  
To start scanning, press the appropriate Button in the titlescreen..  


·While scanning..  


Depending on your selection, the scan may take from a second up to a few minutes.  
The progressbar indicates the remaining time for the current operation.  
Watch the "summary" section while scanning, it gives you an overview about detected spyware components.  
 
 
+scn1.jpg  
In this example, a known spyware component was found active in memory, you'll see the type  
and name later in the resultlist when the scan is finished.  
 
Ignored items will be listed under "Componentes ignored" and mentoined in the logfile, but not further processed.  
Most important is the counter reading "New components", it shows only unexpected components which are not in the ignorelist.  
Once the scan is complete, you should take a look in the logfile Ad-aware has generated.  
If spyware has been detected, it is recommended to save it to disk for later analysis.  
Click the "continue" button to obtain a list of all detected components (if any).  

Note:To abort scanning, click the "Abort" button to return to the titlescreen immediately.  


·If new spyware components have been detected on your system..  


If no (or only ignored) components are found during the scan, a message box will appear after clicking the  
"continue" button, indicating that no new components have been detected.  
+result1.jpg  
 
But if (as in the above example) spyware components have been recognized during the scan, a new window will  
appear after pressing continue, featuring a list showing all detected components.  
 
Each item in the list features 3 fields:  
 
Type : the type of resource, where M = module, K = registry-key, V = registry value and F = folder.  
System : the advertising system to which this component belongs.  
Details : details about the particular item, can be a path-name, registry value etc.  
 
Move and hold your mouse over an item to get more details, like the rootkey and position in the list.  
To select\deselct an item, use its checkbox at the left.  
 
Note:To sort the list according to a categorie, click the appropriate column tab.  
 
Right click in the result list to open the following popup-menu :  
 
 
 
 
The options have the following functions:  
 
·Check\Uncheck all - selects all or none items in the list.  
·Jump to key - if RegHance 2.0 or later is installed, you can jump directly to the selected registry key using this item.  
·Show properties - shows the file-properties tab if an file is selected.  
·Move sel.items to ignorelist - chose this option if you want to IGNORE an advertising system in the future  
·Backup selected items - create a backup and include all selected components.  
·Continue - continue cleaning your system, all selected components will be removed.  
 
Note: the Backup,Exclude and Continue options have appropriate buttons at the screen bottom.  
 
To open a selected registry key with RegHance, make sure you have specified the RegHance installation folder on the  
configuration\paths page.  
When you decide to make a backup, you will be asked for a filename first, then the backup will be created.  
The progressbar indicates the remaining time for creating the backup.  
This may take a few seconds, as all items will be compressed. Read more about backups below.  
 
If you want to ignore certain components, select all items you want to ignore and click the "exclude" Button.  
Ignored items will be removed from the resultlist.  
 
Finally choose the items you want to remove, and click the "continue" button.  
Ad-aware will now remove the selected components- and you are done.  
 
Note:Sometimes it is not possible to remove an component without rebooting first.  
 
 

·Reinstalling components from a backup  


If you wish to re-install components you previously removed using Ad-aware, open the backup-manager from the  
Titlescreen (use the button shown below), and choose the desired backup in the following list.  
After selecting the backup, click the "Restore" button to start the installation.  
(As the backups are compressed, decompressing + installing might take a few seconds)  
 
 
butn2.jpg The "Backups" button in the titlescreen opens the backup manager.  


 

Note: When started, Ad-aware scans the specified backup-folder for valid backups to build this list.  
If you change the backup-path using the configurtation menu, you should move your backups to the new path in order  
to access them with Ad-aware.  
 
The following example shows two backups.  
Notice that the size of the "timesink" backup is significant smaller then the webhancer backup as it only contains registry keys.  
 
 
+backups.jpg  
To delete a backup, click the "delete" button at the bottom of the window, or use the appropriate menu item.  
Right-click on an item to open a popup-menu, featuring options to restore and delete backups.  
To return to the titlescreen, click the "ok" button.  
 
 
 
 
·Editing the "Ignorelist"  


Sometimes you want to keep an particular snoopware system remaining on your system, and don't want Ad-aware to detect  
its components over and over again.For this purpose an ignorelist has been implemented in Ad-aware 5.0.  
You find the ignorelist under configuration\ignorelist.  
 
 
butn3.jpg ..Click this button to open the preferences menu.  

When you first start Ad-aware, this list will be completely empty.  
To add items to the ignorelist, follow these steps:  
First scan your system, continue until the scan result-list.  
Check all items you want to be ignored by Ad-aware in the future, and click the "exclude" button. (or use the appropriate menu item).  



 
 
Any item in this list will be treaten seperately by Ad-aware, it will still be recognized, but not show up in the scan-result list or  
getting removed when you run Ad-aware in the automatic mode.  
Ignored items will be listed in the logfile with a remark, and counted during the scan as beeing ignored.  
 
To remove items from the ignorelist, open the ignorelist-tab in the configuration window,  
check the items in question and click the "remove checked items" button.  
 
Note:Ad-aware shares the ignorelist (and the referencefile) with Ad-watch.  
 
The ignorelist will be saved in the Ad-aware folder under the name "ignorelst"