It's always easier to prevent computer viruses from infecting your computer than it is to get rid of them, but sometimes, no matter how careful you are, you get nailed. Before you bring your PC in for service, try these simple steps to remove the virus from your computer:
1. Close Out
Close out of all running programs, active files, and open windows. If the virus prevents you from doing this, you can still move onto the next step, but do try force quitting if you can't quit a program easily.
2. Run Software
Run your anti-virus software so that it will identify and quarantine any virus it encounters on your computer. If you don't have anti-virus software installed on your computer, open a browser and either download a trial version or run an online version from an anti-virus software provider's website. And if you don't have anti-virus software installed on your PC, take this as a wake-up call, and vow to buy and install it immediately.
3. Run Updates
The virus on your computer may be relatively new, or you may not have been keeping up with you anti-virus software updating, so now is the time to update your anti-virus software with the latest virus definitions. When the update is complete, run the software again to catch anything you may have missed in the previous step.
4. Rescue Disk
If you're still having virus problems, try running the rescue CD that you were prompted to create when you installed your anti-virus software. Just put this CD in and reboot your PC so that the software can catch the virus before it loads on the restart. If you never made a rescue CD, then skip this step, and vow to create one once you get your computer up and running again.
If you performed these steps, and your computer is still having issues, it may be time for you to have it looked at by a professional. Or, if you're brave, you can move onto Advanced Virus Removal with the following steps:
1. Back Up
Back up everything on your computer. You're going to lose pretty much everything off of the hard drive in this process, so if you want to keep it, burn it to a CD or DVD or save it to another drive.
WAIT! AFTER THIS, EVERYTHING ON YOUR COMPUTER WILL BE WIPED. IF YOU DON'T BACK IT UP NOW, YOU'LL LOSE IT FOREVER.
If you're ready to move on, please proceed to Step 2.
2. Reinstall And Reformat
Insert your Windows Installation CD into your drive and boot from the CD (if you don't know how to do this, check with you computer's manufacturer). Follow the prompts, hitting F8 to accept the licensing agreement, and ESC to bypass the repair option so that you can perform a clean installation.
When you see your disk partitions listed, choose the partition where Windows is installed, and delete it by hitting the D key. Confirm the deletion by hitting the L key.
Once you have deleted the Windows partition, you need to make a new partition by hitting the C key, and then hit Enter to allocate space to it. Format the drive as NTFS, then follow the Windows set-up steps until it tells you that Windows has been successfully installed.
3. Update
Update Windows either by running the updater or going directly to the Windows Update. Continue updating until Windows tells you that there are no more updates.
4. Software And Data
Reinstall and update all of your software, including your anti-virus software, then transfer whatever data you need from your back-up onto your computer. Run the anti-virus software to make sure you didn't put a virus onto your computer at any point during the last step. Then run the updater on your anti-virus software one last time.
Done. You should have a clean, virus-free computer. If you continue to have problems, disconnect from the Internet immediately and have your PC looked at by a professional.
To learn more about malware, viruses, spyware and Trojan horses, watch VideoJug's series of informative videos with computer security expert "Hacker X."
