Saturday, January 14, 2023

Remove Alibaba PC Safe Service

If your Windows system has the uninvited Alibaba PC Safe Service resident and you want to remove it, the following info may help you to remove.  The service name of Alibaba PC Safe Service is called AlibabaProtect.  It is typically installed under C:\Program Files (x86) directory.  

You won't be able directly to stop AlibabaProtect from running via Services app (services.msc), or kill it via Task Manager or using the "taskkill /f" command.   AlibabaProtect does not show in the list of "Add or remove programs" App (appwiz.cpl) either.  

Under the installation folder (e.g., C:\Program Files (x86)\AlibabaProtect), you may find an EXE to uninstall but the EXE always refuses to run.

This article explains how  AlibabaProtect gets into your system and provides you a working solution to remove AlibabaProtect without the third party or additional software installed.

How or why will AlibabaProtect be installed?

Most likely your system have AliWangWang installed.  As of this writing, AliWangWang is the only online messenger for chatting with China online marketers on Taobao if you are using Taobao Web version (on a PC or laptop). 

You may be able to bypass AlibabaProtect when you first install AliWangWang.  Unfortunately, AlibabaProtect will be still find a way to get into your system without your notice when you do subsequent update/upgrade AliWangWang.

With AlibabaProtect, most people will immediately notice the slowness on the system.

How to remove AlibabaProtect without additional app installed?

Before you start, you must have administrator rights to do the following.

  1. Open a command prompt with admin rights

  2. Type   takeown /f  "C:\Program Files (x86)\AlibabaProtect" /r /d y  
    Be sure this command runs successfully. If not, sorry you need to seek help from somewhere else.

  3. Type   sc delete AlibabaProtect  
    Be sure this command runs successfully. If not, sorry you need to seek help from somewhere else.

  4. Reboot your system.  If you don't want to reboot, it will be worth a try of either one option below.

    Option 1: End task via Task Manager to kill or stop "Alibaba PC Safe Service"
    or 
    Option 2: In a command prompt with admin rights, do the following:

               sc queryex AlibabaProtect  to find out the PID number, then
               taskkill /pid <pid number> /f  (e.g.,  taskkill /pid 11192 /f )

    If both methods fail or getting  "Access Denied" error, the only one solution is to reboot your system before going onto the next step.

  5. Up to here, you should be able to remove all files and directories of AlibabaProtect
    Type    rmdir /s /q "C:\Program Files (x86)\AlibabaProtect"  in the command prompt with admin rights.
That's all.  Hope the above removal steps may help.  Good luck.