This shouldnt be that difficult to remove im suprised its
causing you system problems,try rebooting into safe mode
(Tapping F8 after rebooting) and removing it from there
but read the part from sunbelt below and see if this
applies to you.
It is the same scanner as Giant Antispyware was ... the
intellectual property for the ex-Giant (now Microsofts
Antispyware) belongs to Sunbelt Software who owns Counter
Spy (such as support for 3rd party plug-ins) ...
Microsoft will provide all update signatures until 2008
for Counterspy.
Looking deeper, you find that the similarity of the two
programs is superficial:
The CounterSpy installation is larger: 64 MB compared to
14 MB for MS.
The files examined by CS are about 62,000 compared to
20,000 by MS.
The Registry locations examined are about 12,000 for CS
and 8,500 for MS.
Some of the numerical differences can be explained by the
fact that CounterSpy detects cookies and MS AntiSpyware
does not. But CounterSpy appears to beat the MS
AntiSpyware beta because CounterSpy enjoys access to
Microsoft's spyware database as well as Sunbelt
Software's own reporting network. This means CounterSpy
benefits from the resources of Microsoft's detection
methods as well as its own spyware signature development.
Heres some technical workarounds for known issues when
running both MS Antispy and Counterspy
"If you have both Microsoft AntiSpyware and CounterSpy
installed all should run well. We have tested this and
they seem to play nicely together when installed
However if you uninstall either one of the products the
other seems to break.
Scenario 1:
1. Both CounterSpy and Microsoft AntiSpyware installed
2. Uninstall CounterSpy
3. Microsoft's gcasDTServ.dll pegs CPU at 100% and will
not end from the task manager.
Workaround:
1. Boot Windows into Safe Mode
2. Launch msconfig and uncheck gcasServ.exe and any other
gc*.exe in the startup tab then restart. (If you are not
running a version of Windows that has msconfig you can
delete the registry entry
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersi
on\Run\gcasServ)
3. From Control Panel - Add or Remove Programs click on
Microsoft AntiSpyware and then click Change
4. In the installer click Update and follow the rest
5. Launch msconfig and check all the unchecked gcas*.exe
files (Confirm that gcasServ was added back to the
registry at the location above)
6. Reboot
7. All should be better
Scenario 2:
1. Both CounterSpy and Microsoft AntiSpyware installed
2. Uninstall Microsoft AntiSpyware
3. When CounterSpy is launched and an error message is
displayed and will not launch.
Workaround:
1. From the Control Panel - Add or Remove Programs click
on CounterSpy
2. Click the Change Button
3. In the installer click Update and follow the rest
4. Reboot
5. All should be better
Phil Owens
Product Manager
Sunbelt Software
Hope this helps
Andy
