Clean Your Computer from Viruses

This is a guide to clean your computer from viruses. One of the common symptoms of knowing viruses is your computers performance, it drops rapidly. Or your anti-virus picks them up. Below is a step-by-step guide.

1. Clean your Temporary Folder
In order to clean your Temporary Folder, go to “Start” – > “Run”. A small dialog box will appear. In the dialog box, type “cleanmgr”. It will do a small scanning. After, make sure you check mark all of the 3 given options: “Temporary Files”, “Temporary Internet Files”, and “Recycle Bin”.

2. Download and run Adware and Spybot – Search and Destroy
Adware and Spybot are probably the most common tools you will hear too often. These tools are specially designed to delete specific types of malwares in your computer. So please make sure you run them both.

Download and Install Adware from http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download/. After you have fully installed Adware, open the file. Now find and click “Click for updates now”. Make sure you are connected to the Internet first. Fully update Adware. It is very important when you download a device to scan your computer, it is fully updated. After you have updated Adware, find and click “Scan Now”. It is recommended to close any other programs before running Adware scan, so please do so. Then it will alert you to select your Scan mode. Make sure you uncheck “Search for negligible risk entries” and check “Perform full system scan”. Now click “Next”. Let the scan run, this may take several minutes. When the scan is completed, click “Next”. Now check the files you would like to Quarantine, it is recommended you checkmark all of the files. After you are done, finally click “Next”. Keep not that the files which were infecting your computer are “Quarantined”, they are not gone. So now we need to delete those files. You can leave those files as “Quarantined”, but they just take space so we’ll get rid of them. Before we move on, work with your computer for a few minutes, confirming that none of the files you have “Quarantined” were system files, because we don’t want to delete system files. After your satisfied, go to your Adware main screen and click on “Open Quarantine List”. This will open all of the quarantined files. Now all of you have to do now is select and delete them.

Download Spybot – Search and Destroy from http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html. When you are opening Spybot, it will ask you whether to create registry backup or not. Please make sure you DO create registry backup. Then it will ask you to update Spybot, please do so. It is very important you keep your Spybot up to date. Now just click “Next” until you reach to the Spybot main screen. If you haven;t updated you Spybot before, then please do it now by clicking on “Updates” from the main screen. Now back to the main screen again. Click on “Check for Problems”. Now Spybot – Search and Destroy will sart it’s scan. Spybot knows about 15000 different types of Spywares so this may take several minutes. After the scan is completed, check all the files and click “Fix Selected Problems”. If the Spybot is unable to remove a file, it will alert you. If you face this situation then I suggest you restart your computer and scan again or run Spybot scan in Safemode.

3. Scan for Malware
Now lets run a anti-virus scan. The programs listed are highly recommended by experts. These are online programs and free to use. Most of the online anti-virus scanners need Internet Explorer to run. Housecall Anti Virus, Panta Anti Virus, and Bit Defender. If you already have an anti-virus program in your computer, update and run that as well.

4. Download McAfee Stinger
This is not a tool to remove any powerful trojans and/or malware, but it is very useful to remove common viruses. Download McAfee Stinger from http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/. Instructions on how to use the program is on the page. Check “Auto Clean” before you start your scan. It will try to fix and/or delete the infected files automatically.

5. Install Firewall
Firewall is like the main gate for your home. If you keep it open, bad boys will keep on coming in. I don’t recommend you to enable Windows Firewall because it eats up your hard drive, and it is not as much effective because it is like a barrier that only repels from outside. All the other good Firewalls not only repels bad boys form coming in, it also detects and removes any viruses that are already in your computer. I personally suggest from personal experience to use Zone Alarm. Download Zone Alarm from http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/comp…d=staticcomp_za

6. Windows Update
Windows Updates are one of the major keys to protect your computer. I strongly suggest you go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ and install the latest update for your Operating System.

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Now, this is probably every person should be able to do, and I am positive that your computer has improved a lot. If you think your computer’s performance has not improved, then use the bottom method.
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7. HijackThis is the answer if your computer has not improved from the methods listed above. HijackThis is a program specially designed by http://www.tomcoyote.org/ to help the people in need. It has proven to help hundreds of people until now. What you do is download HijackThis from http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/ and run it. Instructions are listed in the page where you download the program. Save the log and go to it’s official forums at http://forums.tomcoyote.org/. First, register in their forums and then Paste your log in their forums and wait for assistance. It takes a maximum of 24 hours and someone will read your log and assist you. This whole process is free and have been going on like this for quite a while now.