Don’t ask me how I came across this information because I don’t quit recall how and when it happened. It just did over the years and I have been able to use it to resolve many people’s computer issues and make a few bucks off of it.
Removing viruses or spyware off your computer can be very easy but can also be very time consuming. As long as you know where to look, you can speed up this process while doing it yourself rather than calling in the dreaded geeksquad from Bestbuy. Not to mention save yourself a couple of hundred bucks.
1. RUN VIRUS PROTECTION AND SPYWARE REMOVAL SOFTWARE!
First things first, if I have access to virus protection software, I always run this first to see if it picks up what is wrong with my computer. A lot of times it will find a file that is causing the problems and if it doesn’t fix it you can always google the file and you will generally find a fix to the particular file causing you problems. I also use two other types of software called ad-aware and hijack it. You probably want to run ad-aware after running the virus protection software if possible as well. Hijack it can be used as a last resort thing if going through this process doesn’t resolve anything. However, its good to run it and post the results of hijack it on one of the many hijack it forums and the professionals can look at it and tell you what should and should not be there. If you can’t run your virus protection software you can try a free online scan called Panda. At the very least it will tell you what virus if any you have. Check my links area for links to the online Panda scan and the ad-aware and hi-jack this software.
2. CLEAN OUT MY REGISTRY
One of the first places I always look when attempting to clean my computer up or looking for viruses or spyware is to look in the registry. There are all sorts of software you can use to clean your registry, however, they tend to cost for them to do a reasonable job of cleaning. The free ones tend to give you and idea of what you got but do nothing to help with removal. To access your registry go to the start button and highlight the run option and click it. Type in “regedit” without the quotation marks and hit enter.
This will pull up your registry editor. On the left hand side of the editor you will see 5 folders all starting with HKEY.
There are two different locations here that I look at pretty regularly on my computer even when I don’t have any problems. I look here for general clean up of my computer to help speed things up. First click on the HKEY_CURRENT_USER folder and a drop down list of folders will appear. Next click on the Software folder, then the Microsoft folder, then the Windows folder, then the Current version folder and finally the run folder.
On the right hand side you will see the names of files and their locations. Many times you will find your problem file here. If you want to get rid of a file or you don’t want something starting up then just right click on the file and click delete. Problem solved. The other location is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Currentversion/Run.
It is basically the same set of folders but under the local machine folder. Again same thing here find the problem file or an unknown file or a program you don’t want to run when your computer starts up and right click and click the delete.
3. CHECK THE MSCONFIG FILE AND CLEAN IT UP
Ok the next place I always check is the msconfig location. To access it go to the start menu and open the run command. Type in “msconfig” without the quotation marks and hit enter.
The msconfig program will open. Here you can also access programs that are being started when your computer starts up. When it opens, click on the startup tab and a list of programs will pop up that start when your computer is turned on. You can deselect the ones that you don’t want or need to start up. If in doubt use the following website to look up the name of the program running on your computer before you disable it.
http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php
4. RUN VIRUS PROTECTION AND SPYWARE REMOVAL SOFTWARE AGAIN.
Once finished click ok and restart your computer. After you have gone through these steps, I would run the ad-aware software and your virus protection software once again. If you still have a problem, like I said earlier, try running the hi-jack it software and posting your log that hi-jack produces on one of the many forums online and someone who knows that software will be able to tell you what should and should not be running.
This is by no means a 100% effective removal method but it certainly helps me in most cases and at the very least speeds up my computer.
