[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Remove a Virus or Other Malicious Infection here

[OldOnliner]

This is a tough subject to handle in simple terms. It's a brave move to do this article and you did pretty well covering the essentials of this vexing problem.

Oddly enough (perhaps not?), whenever a customer is told they have a "virus" (and, yes, I agree with the quotes) the first question is usually "where'd it come from" or "what's it's name." Usually I can't provide an answer and the name is mostly meaningless because each security vendor has a different naming convention and, besides, next week or next month there'll be a new iteration with a new name with the same old nastiness.

I often have a problem sympathizing with the plight of infected PC user. Granted, something around a 1/3 or so of machines belong to innocent victims of a scam of one kind or another to gain access and invade the PC. But the vast majority of sick PCs result from bad behavior on the end-user's part -- Limewire and its P2P brethren, porn, gambling, freebie scams (coupons, shop online, make money fast, etc.), and childish/immature IM habits.

Like I said, no sympathy; just nuke it from orbit and move on.

[wired4action]

Right on, OldOnliner.

I just spent some major time removing rogue malware "AntiSpywareGuard2008" from a friends box who got it while screwing around with Limewire (the exact time of infection coincided with that activity).

I finally managed to salvage his completely unusable system with no loss of data or functionality of software. The thing removed his restore points,admin rights--access to regedit, hidden and system files, and disabled any kind of scan or repair tools immediately.

I had to do a non-destructive (single installation) repair of WinXP Pro sp2 when I finally finished manually cleaning the thing out and using all the scan and repair tools that I finally go to work.

He made the most widespread mistake of all Windows users (besides the "get free stuff" thing) of surfing around the world while logged on as an administrator.

And everybody wants to blame M$ for their security while complaining about the UAC in the newer versions.

My "sympathizing" with him ended with that last free time-intensive repair. He now knows to log-on on his guest account if he even wants me to consider helping him out again.

And I, of course, removed his Limewire software before I was through.

[Coaster]

Mr. Spector,

I've possibly gotten a virus somehow a while back and thought that this article might be a good solution.

Although, in it, you list the two different antivirus freebe downloads that can tackle just about everything and clean it. The only issue I have concern with is, that my operating system is Vista. One of the freebe antivirus downloads, doesn't support Vista. Only up to Windows XP.

My concern is, whey you say to use one, to also run the other. Won't this possibly create another problem for me? Using a software not designed for Vista seems risky to me.

Do you still stand by your recommendation? Is so, please let me know here somehow so that I can proceed. Otherwise, I'll never know if my computer is still infected.

Thank you for an excellent article. I just hope that in the future, all blog authors consider all types of operating systems, we victums are using.

[smax013]

Coaster said:

Mr. Spector,


I've possibly gotten a virus somehow a while back and thought that this article might be a good solution.


Although, in it, you list the two different antivirus freebe downloads that can tackle just about everything and clean it. The only issue I have concern with is, that my operating system is Vista. One of the freebe antivirus downloads, doesn't support Vista. Only up to Windows XP.


My concern is, whey you say to use one, to also run the other. Won't this possibly create another problem for me? Using a software not designed for Vista seems risky to me.


Do you still stand by your recommendation? Is so, please let me know here somehow so that I can proceed. Otherwise, I'll never know if my computer is still infected.


Thank you for an excellent article. I just hope that in the future, all blog authors consider all types of operating systems, we victums are using.

Both SuperAntiSpyware and Malwarebyte's Anti-malware work with Vista. It just appears that the PCWorld download site has not been updated to reflect the fact that SAS will work with Vista:

http://www.superanti...play.html?faq=6

FWIW, I will not that neither are really anti-virus packages. They might catch some viruses, but you should still run an actual anti-virus program. A good free one is Avast (http://www.avast.com/).

[Coaster]

smax013,

Thanks. I didn't think of PC World not being up to date on it.

I am runing Avast 4.3 Home Edition. I've used it on my current and past computers. It's good to know that you recommend using it.

Thanks for getting with me on this smax013.

Coaster.................out.

[chevrolet1994]

I use Norton 2009 and use Super Anti-Spyware Professional.

If Super Anti-Spyware finds any "bugs",
I use A-squared free to remove any thing that the first cleaner did not find.