Manual Removal Guide for Weatherstudio.Toolbar

The following instructions have been created to help you to get rid of "Weatherstudio.Toolbar" manually.
Use this guide at your own risk; software should usually be better suited to remove malware, since it is able to look deeper.

If this guide was helpful to you, please consider donating towards this site.

Threat Details:

Categories:

• adware

Description:

Weatherstudio installs a toolbar for the IE including links to dating sites and ringtone sites. The application may display alternate search results and ads. There is no EULA shown during installation, however the terms of use and privacy policy can be viewed on weatherstudio.com. When uninstalled, some registry entries and application folders remain. To the quote from the privacy policy: the kind of data collected is a unique ID

Supposed Functionality:

Display weather for a location predefined by the user.

Privacy Statement:

[...] We need to collect some data to know how many users we have, how our products are performing and where our business going. We do not exploit our users nor do we collect any data that allows us or anyone else to personally identify a user. We do not send or collect any information that can personally identify a user.
We do collect information that is already available to every website you visit. Examples include browser version, language and other browser and connection information.
We use a unique id in order to know how many people use our products. This id is not personally identifying in any way; it is a completely random number.
We do send a log once per day that tells us how many users are installed.
We do collect data at our search and travel sites. This is needed to monitor our business performance. This data does not contain any personally identifying information.
We do not and will not sell or distribute any data collected from the user.
We do share aggregated information with others. Examples of this include how many users clicked on a particular paid listing in a search result.
We do take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data.[...]

Removal Instructions:

Start Menu:

Please remove the following items from your start menu.
To check where they are pointing to, right-click them and choose "Properties" from the context menu appearing.

• Items named "WeatherStudio Desktop.lnk" and pointing to "<$COMMONPROGRAMS>\WeatherStudio Desktop.lnk".

Autorun:

Please use Spybot-S&D, RunAlyzer or msconfig.exe to remove the following autorun entries.

• Entries named "WeatherStudio Desktop" and pointing to ""<$PROGRAMFILES>\WeatherStudio Desktop\bin\WeatherStudio Desktop.exe"".

Installed Software List:

You can try to uninstall products with the names listed below; for items identified by other properties or to avoid malware getting active again on uninstallation, use Spybot-S&D or RunAlyzer to locate and get rid of these entries.

• Products that have a key or property named "WeatherStudio348".

Files:

Please use Windows Explorer or another file manager of your choice to locate and delete these files.

• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\WeatherStudio Desktop\bin\WeatherStudio Desktop.dll".
• The file at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\WeatherStudio348\bin\WeatherStudio348.dll".

Make sure you set your file manager to display hidden and system files. If Weatherstudio.Toolbar uses rootkit technologies, use our RootAlyzer or our Total Commander anti-rootkit plugins.
You will have to use a global search for files without a name specified. Be extra careful, because just the name might not be enough to identify files!

Important: There are more files that cannot be safely described in simple words. Please use Spybot-S&D to remove them.

Folders:

Please use Windows Explorer or another file manager of your choice to locate and delete these folders.

• The directory at "<$COMMONAPPDATA>\WeatherStudio Desktop".
• The directory at "<$COMMONAPPDATA>\WeatherStudio Desktop\images".
• The directory at "<$COMMONAPPDATA>\WeatherStudio348".
• The directory at "<$COMMONAPPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\buttons".
• The directory at "<$COMMONAPPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\contexts".
• The directory at "<$COMMONAPPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\News".
• The directory at "<$COMMONAPPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\SimpleUpdate".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio Desktop".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio Desktop\WeatherStudio Desktop".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\BrowserSearch".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Configurator".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\ErrorSearch".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Games".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Games\images".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Games\images\active".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Games\images\default".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Layouts".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Manager".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Movies".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Movies\images".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Movies\images\active".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Movies\images\default".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\News".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\News\Feeds".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Reference".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\RelatedSearch".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\ScreensaversMarketingSitePager".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\ScreensaversMarketingSitePager\images".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\ScreensaversMarketingSitePager\images\active".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\ScreensaversMarketingSitePager\images\default".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Toolbar".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\ToolbarLogo".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\ToolbarSearch".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\TravelSearch".
• The directory at "<$APPDATA>\WeatherStudio348\Weather".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\WeatherStudio Desktop".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\WeatherStudio Desktop\bin".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\WeatherStudio Desktop\icons".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\WeatherStudio Desktop\images".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\WeatherStudio348".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\WeatherStudio348\bin".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\WeatherStudio348\download1".
• The directory at "<$PROGRAMFILES>\WeatherStudio348\icons".

Make sure you set your file manager to display hidden and system files. If Weatherstudio.Toolbar uses rootkit technologies, use our RootAlyzer or our Total Commander anti-rootkit plugins.
You will have to use a global search for files without a name specified. Be extra careful, because just the name might not be enough to identify folders!

Registry:

You can use regedit.exe (included in Windows) to locate and delete these registry entries.

• Delete the registry key "{6F45AEA2-9C81-4832-8390-7134102B8DE5}" at "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\".
• Delete the registry key "{FFDD804F-A7F8-4395-93D2-66A85DA2BDAB}" at "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\".
• Delete the registry key "{6F45AEA2-9C81-4832-8390-7134102B8DE5}" at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\".
• Delete the registry key "{FFDD804F-A7F8-4395-93D2-66A85DA2BDAB}" at "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Stats\".
• Delete the registry key "{FFDD804F-A7F8-4395-93D2-66A85DA2BDAB}" at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\".
• Delete the registry key "{15757333-2BCA-4B77-A807-D0955132F812}" at "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\".
• Delete the registry value "DefaultScope={15757333-2BCA-4B77-A807-D0955132F812}" at "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes\".
• Delete the registry key "{15757333-2BCA-4B77-A807-D0955132F812}" at "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes\".
• Delete the registry key "{15757333-2BCA-4B77-A807-D0955132F812}" at "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Stats\".
• Delete the registry value "{15757333-2BCA-4B77-A807-D0955132F812}" at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\".
• Delete the registry key "{7C2FC77A-AF76-4A75-AC16-B02A13829F34}" at "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\".
• Delete the registry key "{A7FDE125-CEBE-400E-8F4D-D2C0708B7D70}" at "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\".
• Delete the registry key "WeatherStudio348" at "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\".
• Delete the registry key "WeatherStudioDesktop" at "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\".

If Weatherstudio.Toolbar uses rootkit technologies, use our RegAlyzer, RootAlyzer or our Total Commander anti-rootkit plugins.

Browser:

The following browser plugins or items can either be removed directly in your browser, or through the help of e.g. Spybot-S&D or RunAlyzer.

• Please check your bookmarks for links to "my.weatherstudio.com".

Final Words:

If neither Spybot-S&D nor self help did resolve the issue or you would prefer one on one help,

1. Please read these instructions before requesting assistance,
2. Then start your own thread in the Malware Removal Forum where a volunteer analyst will advise you as soon as available.