A newer modified version of the notorious fake antivirus software known as Antivirus Live, Antivirus Soft uses the same scare tactics as its predecessor to get users to pay for a software license. This rogue software reaches the user via Trojans that exploit security loopholes, and by getting downloaded from porn websites. Once established on the user’s system, Antivirus Soft loads itself at startup and performs a large number of fake scans on the system, giving fake results that report harmless files that Antivirus Soft itself created on installation as dangerous viruses. It also generates a number of fake pop-up warnings from the Windows taskbar which report false threats. Antivirus Soft then asks the user to buy the ‘trial’ version of the software, claiming that the currently installed ‘trial’ version cannot successfully remove the detected ‘threats’. It is important to remember that the ‘full’ version of Antivirus Soft is just as incapable of scanning the user’s system as the ‘trial’ version is.
As soon as you find a copy of Antivirus Soft on your computer, you should take steps to remove it. In order to delete Antivirus Soft, you must stop its processes, delete its files and folders and remove its registry entries.
File Removal Procedures
The first step you need to perform in order to delete Antivirus Soft is:
- [random characters]sysguard.exe
- [random characters]sftav.exe
The next step is to delete the following files and folders:
Windows XP:
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\[random characters]\
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\[random characters]\[random characters]sysguard.exe
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\[random characters]\[random characters]sftav.exe
Windows 7:
- %UserProfile%\AppData\Local\[random characters]\
- %UserProfile%\AppData\Local\[random characters]\[random characters]sysguard.exe
- %UserProfile%\AppData\Local\[random characters]\[random characters]sftav.exe
Once these steps have been completed, Antivirus Soft no longer resides on your hard disk.
Registry Removal Procedures
To completely delete Antivirus Soft, remove the following entries from the Windows registry:
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “[random charaters]“
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “[random characters]“
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Attachments “SaveZoneInformation” = “1″
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings “ProxyServer” = “http=127.0.0.1:5555″
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Associations “LowRiskFileTypes” = “.exe”
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Download “RunInvalidSignatures” = “1″
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings “ProxyOverride” = “”
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AvScan
After all these steps have been completed, you have completely deleted Antivirus Soft from your computer. However, in order to make sure that no further infections are left behind it is recommended to complete a full system scan using Spyware Doctor with Antivirus.
Conclusion
Inexperienced users are discouraged from attempting to manually delete Antivirus Soft, as any mistake you make could damage your system. Instead, inexperienced users should make use of a web-based repair service such as www.onlinecomputerrepair.org due to the fact that it can remotely fix any PC problem under the protection of a money back guarantee.