Windows-hold Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Windows-hold pop-up notices may show up unexpectedly, covering the content of the site you went to or opening your browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Windows-hold promotion can cause the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of Windows-hold popups clearing in several manners, as well as inspecting your computer for additional viruses presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Windows-hold manually may take hours and may damage your PC in the process. I recommend you to download GridinSoft Anti-Malware for threats removal. Allows to complete scan and cure your PC during the trial period.

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What are Windows-hold pop-ups?

Windows-hold popups are a consequence of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which creates a substantial amount of revenue for adware representatives. These promotions may have explicit material, or have a web link to malicious content/website, since adware maintainers have no purpose to inspect the goodness of the material they are going to show – their single target is cash.

Windows-hold push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, affordable and very effective marketing tool¹. It makes it possible for the seller to link the buyers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the customer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to purchase is provided at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this possibility and purchase it. Taking into consideration the very small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing instrument is a favourite thing amidst the marketing teams of big internet retailers.

Nonetheless, such a profitable strategy could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to show the popup ads by force to the targets of malware attack is a perfect basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup advertisements. And Windows-hold.com promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a details for the Windows-hold site

How have I got the Windows-hold virus?

There are a plenty of ways of getting infected by the adware that lead to the Windows-hold popups tornado. A lion’s part of this computer virus instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware may also be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is provided as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of people often work with the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different utilities that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these kinds of software are dangerous, since it is very easy to integrate a Windows-hold malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Windows-hold popup virus can additionally be hidden in the ad somewhere on the strange web page. Such web pages are usually loaded with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors usually accept any promotions to be placed on their web page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor realizes what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can additionally receive something much more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious ads.

The statistic shows that people dislike popup advertising more than other types of promotions

Potentially unwanted programs, like Windows-hold pop-up virus can initiate a lot of troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications may display you the advertisements, where you are offered to get another strange application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is quite hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also used as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these advertisements, they may be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Windows-hold pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Windows-hold adware elimination consists of 2 parts. Initially, we need to exterminate the malware, and afterwards take care of the results of its action. The elimination process is really simple, because it can be done even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. However, because of its large resources usage, as well as some errors that can be pivotal for some types of users, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its use is likely impossible. Additionally, a wide range of trojan viruses can turn off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven antivirus tool that will undoubtedly erase the malware from your system and make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s manage Windows-hold adware first.

Removing Windows-hold popup virus with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

• Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware. After the installation, you will be offered to perform the Standard Scan. Approve this action.

• Standard scan checks the logical disk where the system files are stored, together with the files of programs you have already installed. The scan lasts up to 6 minutes.

• When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of Windows-hold malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.

Now, when the computer is clean of viruses, we can proceed to the browser reset. You can do this step manually, as well as with the use of GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

Reset browser settings to default

Manual method of browser reset

To reset Edge, do the following steps :

1. Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :

2. After picking the Reset Settings option, you will see the following menu, stating about the settings which will be reverted to original :

For Mozilla Firefox, do the next actions :

1. Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information” :

2. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :

After choosing this option, you will see the next message :

If you use Google Chrome

1. Open Settings tab, find the “Advanced” button. In the extended tab choose the “Reset and clean up” button :

2. In the appeared list, click on the “Restore settings to their original defaults” :

3. Finally, you will see the window, where you can see all the settings which will be reset to default :

Opera can be reset in the next way

1. Open Settings menu by pressing the gear icon in the toolbar (left side of the browser window), then click “Advanced” option, and choose “Browser” button in the drop-down list. Scroll down, to the bottom of the settings menu. Find there “Restore settings to their original defaults” option :


2. After clicking the “Restore settings…” button, you will see the window, where all settings, which will be reset, are shown :

When the browsers are reset, you need to ensure that your browser will definitely connect the accurate DNS while connecting to the website you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following lines³:

Find the hosts.txt file in C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc directory. Rename this file to “hosts.old.txt” (to distinguish it from the new one), and then move the file you created on the desktop to this folder. Remove the hosts.old from this folder. Now you have your hosts file as good as new.

However, there is one issue that makes the things much harder to restore, especially without the anti-malware software. Most of adware versions that are used to show you the Windows-hold pop-up promotions are changing the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your PC was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse quickly. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the typical, up until you try to open settings once again.

Reset your browser settings with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

To reset your browser with GridinSoft Anti-Malware, open the Tools tab, and click the “Reset browser settings” button.

You can see the list of the options for each browser. By default, they are set up in the manner which fits the majority of users. Press the “Reset” button (lower right corner). In a minute your browser will be as good as new.

The browser reset is recommended to perform through the antivirus tool by GridinSoft, because last is also able to reset the HOSTS file without any additional commands.

How to Remove Windows-hold Pop-ups?

Name: Windows-hold

Description: Windows-hold - a lot of users became a target for the pop-up advertisements. I have a lot of friends who literally bombed me with the questions like “how to remove Windows-hold.com push notifications?” or “why do Windows-hold.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Windows-hold pop-ups, which may corrupt your browser’s correct performance, and create a lot of troubles while you are working.

Operating System: Windows

Application Category: Adware

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1. More about pop-up advertisements on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and the reasons why I suggest it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.