How to Remove GreatDefender | GreatDefender Removal Guide
GreatDefender is a rogue antivirus application from the winisoft family. It is installed onto a system through the use of trojans and other malware which should give you an indication that it is not something that you want on your system. (It’s usually a bad sign when you don’t know where a piece of software came from.) Once on your system it will run at boot and complain about security problems that it has found on your computer. It will further scan for viruses and consistently find viruses (even if it’s installed on a fresh windows installed it is guaranteed to find something to complain about.) Don’t fall for this scam and pay them for this software. They claim the problems found can only be fixed by paying for this software, don’t buy it. Instead, read on for how to remove greatdefender.
The first stop you should make is in the control panel at add/remove programs. It may be possible to uninstall greatdefender this way, but likely will not. If you are able to remove it this way that is good, now you should just finish up with a scan from a malware remover such as malwarebytes antimalware or superantispyware and then a trusted antivirus such as norton/avast/AVG or trendmicros online scan. I wouldn’t consider the system clean until those scans have come up as clean.
You may find a download link to malwarebytes on my virus removal toolkit page. You may also wish to download process explorer as it may be useful later in the removal process. If you are unable to install malwarebytes you may try a few tricks to make the install work. 1) rename the installer from mbam-setup.exe to something like explorer.exe then retry the install, update and scan. 2) reboot into safe mode with networking and then retry the install (possibly also using trick 1). 3) follow the next step in a manual removal of greatdefender (which is terminating the running processes associated with the rogue) and then attempt the install again.
The following processes are associated with GreatDefender and should be killed off using the task manager for removal of greatdefender. If you are unable to launch the task manager, you may try the following 1)copy the program for the task manager (taskmgr.exe) to the desktop and rename it to something like iexplore.exe and then launch and see if you can kill off the listed processes. 2) reboot into safe mode with networking and see if the processes listed are running, if not continue (in safe mode) with your removal. 3) try using process explorer instead of taskmanager to kill off the following processes:
GreatDefender.exe
Uninstall.exe
The following files should be deleted for a complete manual removal of greatdefender:
%docs%\All Users\Desktop\GreatDefender.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\GreatDefender
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\GreatDefender\1 GreatDefender.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\GreatDefender\2 Homepage.lnk
%docs%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\GreatDefender\3 Uninstall.lnk
%progfiles%\GreatDefender Software
%progfiles%\GreatDefender Software\GreatDefender
%progfiles%\GreatDefender Software\GreatDefender\GreatDefender.exe
%progfiles%\GreatDefender Software\GreatDefender\uninstall.exe
After the above are removed you have completed a manual removal of greatdefender and should follow up with a scan of your machine with a utility such as superantispyware or malwarebytes antimalware. Then find a trusted and reputable antivirus to install and scan your system with (avg/avira/avast/trendmicro/etc.)