Austrian anti-malware vendor Emsisoft has announced the release of version 2 beta of its free portable malware removal and repair kit. Emsisoft Emergency Kit 2.0.0.4 Beta provides a selection of free tools for detecting and removing malware from an infected PC, including two scanning tools (one GUI, one command-line), a manual investigation and removal tool, plus BlitzBank, which can delete files, drivers and Registry entries at boot time to thwart malware protection.

Version 2 incorporates the scan engine from Emsisoft Anti-Malware 6, plus promises a 450% speed improvement on the previous build as well as direct disk access for better rootkit detection and removal.

The new scan engine employs Emsisoft Anti-Malware 6’s “dual scan engine framework”, which is designed to utilise multiple processor cores to boost performance, which is probably the prime driver behind Emsisoft’s claim that Emergency Kit 2 averages a 450% speed improvement on its predecessor without a loss in scanning functionality.

You'll need to update to version 2 through Emsisoft Emergency Kit Scanner.

There’s a new direct disk scanning option that promises better rootkit detection, and this is reflected in changed scan presets – in Rootkit scan is added by default, while Cookie scans are excluded.

The application also claims improved false positive handling – an important improvement seeing as it erroneously claimed a Quicken 2002 DLL on our system was a Trojan. Users also gain greater control over what actions should be taken after a scan is complete – click Actions on scan end when setting up a scan to choose what happens by default.

Version 2 also sees a new system for storing settings, which means existing settings are lost when updating from version 1 to 2. Like all Emsisoft beta updates, you need to have installed the previous version of Emsisoft Emergency Kit, then update through the Emergency Kit Scanner’s internal update system: on the main screen, click Updater settings, tick “Install beta updates”, then return to the Security Status menu before clicking Update now.

Emsisoft Emergency Kit 2.0.0.4 Beta is available now as a free download for PCs running Windows.