How to Remove SoftBarrier | SoftBarrier Removal Guide
Softbarrier is the latest in the long line of Wini rogue antivirus programs that include…. Shieldsafeness (see the shieldsafeness removal guide) as well as… SoftStronghold (softstronghold removal guide) and succeeds the following variants in this prolific family…. Softveteran (see the softveteran removal guide) but…. SoftCop (see the SoftCop removal guide.) But, the line goes much further back…. Softsoldier (How to remove SoftSoldier), ( TrustFighter TrustFighter Removal Guide, TrustSoldier removal guide and the following others… SafeFighter (Safefighter Removal), TrustCop (TrustCop Removal Guide), SecureWarrior (SecureWarrior Removal), SecurityFighter (SecurityFighter Removal), SecuritySoldier (SecuritySoldier Removal) and it also has gone under yet other names. As you can see, they’re a FUN group! Read on for information on how to remove SoftBarrier.
SoftBarrier is usually introduced onto a system through a trojan claiming to be a codec or flash update and once on the system the trojan loads SoftBarrier. SoftBarrier then, in turn creates lots of randomly named files on your machine that it then proceeds to find in it’s scans. When it finds these files it will claim that they are viral and need to be fixed, but alas…. it can’t do that unless you pay. This is an old scam – please don’t pay them.
For your removal of SoftBarrier you should start by downloading malwarebytes antimalware and optionally process explorer from the virus removal toolkit download page. Next I would try going to the control panel, find add/remove programs and try uninstalling Softbarrier through the traditional uninstall route. For these kinds of rogues it usually fails, but that’s the easiest to try. If that fails attempt to install malwarebytes and update it and let it run a full scan. It’s possible that the rogue will prevent malwarebytes from installing. There are a couple things you can try to make it install anyway. 1) try renaming the installer file from mbam-setup.exe to something different (louis.exe), then try to install from the newly named installer 2) reboot into safe mode and then retry installation. 3) follow with the manual removal of softbarrier steps below and retry your install of malwarebytes at various steps along the way (most importantly just after killing off the running processes associated with Softbarrier.)
So, next you will need to open up the task manager and kill off the running processes associated with SoftBarrier. If you are unable to launch the task manager you may copy and paste the program file for it (taskmgr.exe) to another filename and re-attempt to run this newly renamed file. Alternatively you can make use of process explorer (mentioned above) to find and kill off the following running processes.
SoftBarrier.exe
Uninstall.exe
There may be a couple of other randomly named files running associated with this rogue. Use the list of files below as a guide for finding how they are named on your system and proceed to kill off any tasks that have similar naming conventions. (all numbers.exe all numbers.tmp.exe for instance)
The following files and folders should be deleted to remove SoftBarrier:
%docs%\All Users\Desktop\SoftBarrier.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\SoftBarrier
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\SoftBarrier\1 SoftBarrier.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\SoftBarrier\2 Homepage.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\SoftBarrier\3 Uninstall.lnk
%progfiles%\\SoftBarrier Software
%progfiles%\\SoftBarrier Software\SoftBarrier
%progfiles%\\SoftBarrier Software\SoftBarrier\SoftBarrier.exe
%progfiles%\SoftBarrier Software\SoftBarrier\uninstall.exe
%win%\1037not-a-zir9s795.cpl
%win%\10517z9rm7e.cpl
%win%\111249acztool1ef5.exe
%win%\system32\1649zt5oj447.exe
%win%\system32\164z7spamb95755.bin
%win%\system32\16624s5y1z9.dll
%tmp%\vwc4.tmp.exe
Some of the filenames above are created randomly and may differ on your system. For that reason you should use the patterns above to help you search your system for similarly named files and delete (or at least rename and isolate) any matches to the patterns above. Finally, I would install and run malwarebytes antimalware and then scan the computer with a reputable antivirus (avira, avg for instance.) After this you will have completed your removal of SoftBarrier.