The Windows Support Alert is classified as misleading advertising. It is designed to force you into calling a fake Windows Tech Support. It can display fake alerts within the Chrome, IE, MS Edge and FF or reroute your browser on other malicious and misleading web-pages. If you’re seeing this unwanted site then it could mean that your web-browser has become the victim of an adware (sometimes named ‘ad-supported’ software). As a result of the adware infection, your web-browser will be full of ads (pop-ups, banners, in-text links, offers to install an unwanted applications) and your computer will be slower and slower.
The ‘ad supported’ software which cause misleading “Windows Support Alert” fake alerts to appear, is the part of the software that is used as an online promotional utility. It is created with the sole purpose to display dozens of ads, and thus to promote the goods and services in an open web-browser window. Moreover, the adware can substitute the legitimate advertising banners on misleading or even banners that can offer to visit malicious web sites. The reason is simple, many advertisers agree on any ways to attract users to their pages, so the developers of adware, often forcing users to click on an advertising link. For each click on a link, the creators of the ad supported software receive income.
The ad supported software often change all web-browser shortcut files that located on your Desktop to force you visit various annoying ad web-sites. As a result, your web browser can still redirect you to an intrusive ad web-page despite your PC is actually free of ad-supported software and other malware.
We advise to remove the ad supported software that causes web browsers to open misleading “Windows Support Alert” popup, as soon as you found this problem, as it can redirect your web-browser to web-resources which may load other malicious software on your computer.
Remove “Windows Support Alert” pop-up warnings
Fortunately, it is not hard to get rid of ad-supported software that causes multiple misleading “Windows Support Alert” alerts and popups. In the following guide, we will provide two solutions to clean your personal computer of this adware. One is the manual removal way and the other is automatic removal solution. You can choose the solution that best fits you. Please follow the removal tutorial below to remove “Windows Support Alert” fake alerts right now!
To remove “Windows Support Alert”, complete the following steps:
- How to delete “Windows Support Alert” popup scam without any software
- Delete potentially unwanted apps through the MS Windows Control Panel
- Remove “Windows Support Alert” from Firefox by resetting internet browser settings
- Get rid of “Windows Support Alert” fake alerts from Microsoft Internet Explorer
- Remove “Windows Support Alert” popup from Chrome
- Fix web browser shortcuts, changed by ad-supported software
- Remove unwanted Scheduled Tasks
- Scan your personal computer and remove “Windows Support Alert” pop-up warnings with free tools
- Use AdBlocker to stop “Windows Support Alert” and stay safe online
- Don’t know how your internet browser has been hijacked by “Windows Support Alert” popup scam?
- To sum up
How to delete “Windows Support Alert” popup scam without any software
Most common adware may be deleted without any antivirus software. The manual adware removal is few simple steps that will teach you how to remove the “Windows Support Alert” fake alerts.
Delete potentially unwanted apps through the MS Windows Control Panel
First, you should try to identify and delete the program that causes the appearance of unwanted ads or web browser redirect, using the ‘Uninstall a program’ which is located in the ‘Control panel’.
- If you are using Windows 8, 8.1 or 10 then click Windows button, next press Search. Type “Control panel”and press Enter.
- If you are using Windows XP, Vista, 7, then click “Start” button and click “Control Panel”.
- It will show the Windows Control Panel.
- Further, click “Uninstall a program” under Programs category.
- It will display a list of all apps installed on the PC.
- Scroll through the all list, and uninstall questionable and unknown programs. To quickly find the latest installed apps, we recommend sort apps by date.
See more details in the video instructions below.
Remove “Windows Support Alert” from Firefox by resetting internet browser settings
If the FF web browser application is hijacked, then resetting its settings can help. The Reset feature is available on all modern version of FF. A reset can fix many issues by restoring Firefox settings such as new tab page, default search engine and homepage to its default state. It will save your personal information like saved passwords, bookmarks, and open tabs.
First, run the FF and press button. It will display the drop-down menu on the right-part of the internet browser. Further, click the Help button () as displayed below.
In the Help menu, select the “Troubleshooting Information” option. Another way to open the “Troubleshooting Information” screen – type “about:support” in the internet browser adress bar and press Enter. It will open the “Troubleshooting Information” page as shown in the following example. In the upper-right corner of this screen, press the “Refresh Firefox” button.
It will display the confirmation prompt. Further, click the “Refresh Firefox” button. The Firefox will start a procedure to fix your problems that caused by the adware which cause misleading “Windows Support Alert” pop up to appear. When, it is finished, click the “Finish” button.
Get rid of “Windows Support Alert” fake alerts from Microsoft Internet Explorer
If you find that IE internet browser settings such as default search engine, start page and newtab page having been changed by adware that causes web browsers to open misleading “Windows Support Alert” pop-up, then you may restore your settings, via the reset internet browser procedure.
First, open the IE, click ) button. Next, press “Internet Options” like below.
In the “Internet Options” screen select the Advanced tab. Next, click Reset button. The IE will display the Reset Internet Explorer settings prompt. Select the “Delete personal settings” check box and press Reset button.
You will now need to reboot your machine for the changes to take effect. It will delete adware which causes misleading “Windows Support Alert” popup on your browser, disable malicious and ad-supported browser’s extensions and restore the Internet Explorer’s settings like start page, default search provider and newtab page to default state.
Remove “Windows Support Alert” popup from Chrome
If your Google Chrome web-browser is re-directed to undesired “Windows Support Alert” web page, it may be necessary to completely reset your internet browser program to its default settings.
- First, launch the Chrome and press the Menu icon (icon in the form of three dots).
- It will display the Chrome main menu. Choose More Tools, then press Extensions.
- You’ll see the list of installed addons. If the list has the extension labeled with “Installed by enterprise policy” or “Installed by your administrator”, then complete the following tutorial: Remove Chrome extensions installed by enterprise policy.
- Now open the Google Chrome menu once again, press the “Settings” menu.
- Next, click “Advanced” link, that located at the bottom of the Settings page.
- On the bottom of the “Advanced settings” page, press the “Reset settings to their original defaults” button.
- The Chrome will display the reset settings prompt as shown on the image above.
- Confirm the web-browser’s reset by clicking on the “Reset” button.
- To learn more, read the article How to reset Chrome settings to default.
Fix web browser shortcuts, changed by ad-supported software
Now you need to clean up the web-browser shortcut files. Check that the shortcut file referring to the right exe-file of the web browser, and not on any unknown file.
Right click on the shortcut file of infected web-browser as displayed in the figure below.
Select the “Properties” option and it’ll open the shortcut file’s properties. Next, press the “Shortcut” tab and then delete the “http://site.address” string from Target field as shown below.
Then click OK to save changes. Repeat the step for all web browsers which are redirected to the “Windows Support Alert” unwanted web site.
Remove unwanted Scheduled Tasks
Once installed, the ad-supported software can add a task in to the Windows Task Scheduler Library. Due to this, every time when you boot your PC system, it will display “Windows Support Alert” undesired web site. So, you need to check the Task Scheduler Library and delete all harmful tasks that have been created by malicious programs.
Press Windows and R keys on the keyboard at the same time. This displays a prompt that titled with Run. In the text field, type “taskschd.msc” (without the quotes) and click OK. Task Scheduler window opens. In the left-hand side, click “Task Scheduler Library”, as shown in the figure below.
In the middle part you will see a list of installed tasks. Please select the first task, its properties will be show just below automatically. Next, click the Actions tab. Pay attention to that it launches on your PC system. Found something like “explorer.exe http://site.address” or “chrome.exe http://site.address”, then remove this malicious task. If you are not sure that executes the task, check it through a search engine. If it is a component of the adware, then this task also should be removed.
Having defined the task that you want to delete, then press on it with the right mouse button and choose Delete as shown below.
Repeat this step, if you have found a few tasks which have been created by malicious software. Once is done, close the Task Scheduler window.
Scan your personal computer and remove “Windows Support Alert” pop-up warnings with free tools
Anti Malware programs differ from each other by many features like performance, scheduled scans, automatic updates, virus signature database, technical support, compatibility with other antivirus apps and so on. We recommend you run the following free applications: Zemana, MalwareBytes and Hitman Pro. Each of these applications has all of needed features, but most importantly, they can identify the ad supported software and get rid of “Windows Support Alert” pop up from the MS Edge, Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Use Zemana Anti-malware to delete “Windows Support Alert”
Zemana Anti-malware is a tool that can delete ad-supported software, PUPs, browser hijackers and other malware from your machine easily and for free. Zemana Anti-malware is compatible with most antivirus software. It works under Windows (10 – XP, 32 and 64 bit) and uses minimum of computer resources.
Now you can install and use Zemana AntiMalware (ZAM) to remove “Windows Support Alert” popup from your browser by following the steps below:
Click the following link to download Zemana Free installer named Zemana.AntiMalware.Setup on your machine. Save it on your MS Windows desktop.
164099 downloads
Author: Zemana Ltd
Category: Security tools
Update: July 16, 2019
Launch the installation package after it has been downloaded successfully and then follow the prompts to setup this tool on your personal computer.
During installation you can change certain settings, but we suggest you don’t make any changes to default settings.
When install is complete, this malicious software removal tool will automatically run and update itself. You will see its main window as on the image below.
Now press the “Scan” button to perform a system scan for the adware which causes misleading “Windows Support Alert” pop-up scam on your browser. Depending on your computer, the scan can take anywhere from a few minutes to close to an hour. While the Zemana Free utility is checking, you can see how many objects it has identified as being affected by malware.
After Zemana Anti Malware (ZAM) has completed scanning your computer, you can check all items detected on your PC system. Review the scan results and then click “Next” button.
The Zemana Anti-Malware (ZAM) will remove adware which cause misleading “Windows Support Alert” pop up to appear. After disinfection is finished, you can be prompted to restart your machine to make the change take effect.
Use HitmanPro to get rid of “Windows Support Alert” fake alerts
HitmanPro is a free removal tool that may be downloaded and run to get rid of ad-supported software which made to show misleading “Windows Support Alert” pop-up scam within your internet browser, browser hijacker infections, malicious software, PUPs, toolbars and other threats from your machine. You can use this utility to detect threats even if you have an antivirus or any other security program.
Visit the following page to download HitmanPro. Save it on your MS Windows desktop or in any other place.
Download and run Hitman Pro on your personal computer. Once started, press “Next” button for checking your system for the adware that causes multiple misleading “Windows Support Alert” alerts and pop-ups. This task can take quite a while, so please be patient. .
After the system scan is finished, Hitman Pro will show a screen that contains a list of malicious software that has been found.
Review the report and then click Next button.
It will open a prompt, click the “Activate free license” button to start the free 30 days trial to remove all malicious software found.
How to delete “Windows Support Alert” with Malwarebytes
You can delete “Windows Support Alert” fake alerts automatically with a help of Malwarebytes Free. We suggest this free malicious software removal utility because it can easily remove hijacker infections, ad supported software, potentially unwanted apps and toolbars with all their components such as files, folders and registry entries.
- Please go to the following link to download MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. Save it on your Desktop.
Malwarebytes Anti-malware
326454 downloads
Author: Malwarebytes
Category: Security tools
Update: April 15, 2020
- After downloading is finished, close all programs and windows on your PC. Open a directory in which you saved it. Double-click on the icon that’s named mb3-setup.
- Further, click Next button and follow the prompts.
- Once setup is finished, click the “Scan Now” button for checking your system for the adware which shows misleading “Windows Support Alert” popup scam on your PC. While the MalwareBytes Anti Malware (MBAM) is checking, you may see how many objects it has identified either as being malicious software.
- When finished, MalwareBytes AntiMalware will display a list of all items detected by the scan. Once you have selected what you want to get rid of from your computer press “Quarantine Selected”. Once the process is finished, you can be prompted to reboot your computer.
The following video offers a steps on how to delete hijackers, adware and other malicious software with MalwareBytes Free.
Use AdBlocker to stop “Windows Support Alert” and stay safe online
We suggest to install an ad-blocking program which can stop “Windows Support Alert” and other intrusive web pages. The ad blocking tool like AdGuard is a program that basically removes advertising from the Web and stops access to malicious pages. Moreover, security experts says that using ad-blocker applications is necessary to stay safe when surfing the World Wide Web.
Visit the page linked below to download AdGuard. Save it directly to your MS Windows Desktop.
26655 downloads
Version: 6.4
Author: © Adguard
Category: Security tools
Update: November 15, 2018
After downloading is finished, start the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” screen as on the image below.
Follow the prompts. Once the installation is complete, you will see a window as displayed below.
You can click “Skip” to close the installation program and use the default settings, or click “Get Started” button to see an quick tutorial that will help you get to know AdGuard better.
In most cases, the default settings are enough and you do not need to change anything. Each time, when you start your computer, AdGuard will run automatically and stop advertisements, “Windows Support Alert” redirect, as well as other malicious or misleading sites. For an overview of all the features of the application, or to change its settings you can simply double-click on the AdGuard icon, that can be found on your desktop.
Don’t know how your internet browser has been hijacked by “Windows Support Alert” popup scam?
Most of intrusive popup ads like “Windows Support Alert” ads come from internet browser toolbars, web browser extensions, BHOs (browser helper objects) and additional programs. In many cases, these items claim itself as applications which improve your experience on the Web by providing a fast and interactive home page or a search engine that does not track you. Remember, how to avoid the unwanted applications. Be cautious, start only reputable software which download from reputable sources. NEVER install any unknown and suspicious programs.
To sum up
Now your machine should be clean of the adware which developed to display misleading “Windows Support Alert” popup within your browser. Uninstall AdwCleaner. We suggest that you keep Zemana Anti Malware (to periodically scan your personal computer for new adwares and other malware) and AdGuard (to help you stop annoying ads and malicious web-sites). Moreover, to prevent any adware, please stay clear of unknown and third party applications, make sure that your antivirus program, turn on the option to find out PUPs.
If you need more help with “Windows Support Alert” pop-up scam related issues, go to our Spyware/Malware removal forum.
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