pctechguide.com

  • Home
  • Guides
  • Tutorials
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • Glossary
  • Contact

Remove Annoying Malware in 5 Steps

Malware and viruses are a part of the computer landscape these days. Their presence shows no signs of slowing down. There are tools available to find and clean them, but malware still seems to find its way past these barriers at times. Furthermore, these tools have features to shield the computer from infection. Again, however, they are not always successful. Unfortunately, once an infection occurs the best course of action may be to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows. But, there may be some steps you can take before to prevent this extreme measure.

Update Your Operating System

Updating Windows should be one of the first things you should try to do. There is a possibility that a vulnerability in your computer was exposed and an update will help close this hole and fix the issue. You may think that updates are already happening on your computers. Howeve,r there are times where the settings are to download updates, but install manually.

You will want to click on Start and then Windows Updates to get started. This will take you to an application that will download and install any critical updates that are necessary for your computer. This process will make sure your computer is protected from any know issues in the wild. This process will also install the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool that will help in the removal of the malware.

Document Issues

Write down anything unusual you see on your computer. Write down any popups that you see on the screen. The reason for writing these down is that you may need to reference these at a later point.

Go To Safemode

Much of your troubleshooting can be done in safe mode. You need to use some special keys in order to get into safe mode. Reboot the machine and start hitting F8 key repeatedly until you see a boot menu. On that menu, you will see an option for Safe Mode with Networking.

This mode will allow you to load Windows with a low profile. Many programs, including the virus or malware, will not run. Once, in this mode you can download troubleshooting tools. The best place to start is to go to Malwarebytes.org and download the free tool. You can install this tool and run a scan. Elect to clean any issues that it finds. A good many times this will get rid of issues you have.

Go Advanced

If you are still having issues after running Malwarebytes then you will need to use some more advanced tools. A good place to start is using Hijack This. This tool will allow you to remove Browser Helper Objects that you have in your list you documented earlier. It is a more advanced tool and is not automated. But, if you know what you are looking for it will get rid of issues you find.

Reformat

If you are unsuccessful after all the other tasks, then it is time to reformat and reinstall. Try to backup any important files that you are able to including documents and pictures. Back them up to an external drive or location, but also scan them for issues. Locate your recovery CD or boot into your recovery partition. This will walk you through reinstalling your computer to the way it came when you took it out of the box. You will then have to reinstall all of your other programs. This possibility is a pain, but you will be assured there will be no more malware from this infection.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Articles

Latest Articles

Tweak the Power Button on Your PC

There are all kinds of button on the computer, especially laptops. But, there is one button that holds a lot of power both figuratively and literally and it often gets over looked. That is the button that turns the computer off and on. But, many do not realize that this button can be tweaked to … [Read More...]

Celeron Covington

The first Celerons (codenamed Covington) were essentially a Pentium IIs manufactured without any Level 2 cache at all. Although clocked at 266 or 300MHz - substantially higher than the old Pentium MMX - the cacheless Celerons were a good deal … [Read More...]

Floppy Installation Connection

A floppy disk drive's connectors are at the back of the unit. Controller connector: The floppy drive connector looks similar to a 40-pin IDE connector, but is a little smaller with a pin count of 34. However, as with an IDE cable, the convention is for Pin 1 on the connector to … [Read More...]

Artificial Intelligence is Shaping the Solar Energy Field

The global market for solar power is expected to be worth $194.75 billion by 2027. As demand for solar energy solutions rises, solar product … [Read More...]

9 More Great Microsoft Word Hacks to Boost Productivity

We mentioned a few great Microsoft Word hacks in our last post. We wanted to follow up and share some more that can help improve productivity. … [Read More...]

7 Great Microsoft Word Hacks to Bolster Productivity

Today we are going to show you 24 Word tricks to get the most out of this text editor. Although there are many alternatives, Word is still the tool … [Read More...]

The Growing Importance of AI in Forestry Preservation

Artificial Intelligence as a key to environmental and forest industry preservation There are different types of Artificial Intelligence. On the one … [Read More...]

Machine Learning: the Future of the Hotel Industry

Do you operate a hotel chain and want to calculate budgets automatically? Does your hotel need to predict next week's purchase orders or how many … [Read More...]

5 Pieces of Technology to Boost Your Business in 2021

Let’s face it; running a business is not usually easy. Whether you are self-employed and running your own one-person operation or employing many … [Read More...]

Guides

  • Computer Communications
  • Mobile Computing
  • PC Components
  • PC Data Storage
  • PC Input-Output
  • PC Multimedia
  • Processors (CPUs)

Recent Posts

HiperLAN2

HiperLAN2 is one of a number of new generation standards supporting both asynchronous data and time critical services (e.g. … [Read More...]

Pentium D

The advent of the multicore desktop processor is expected to end the clock rate race between Intel and AMD which has … [Read More...]

Fatal Exception OE Errors

Anybody who owns a PC has probably seen enough error screens to last a lifetime. Out of all of these possible error messages, one of the most … [Read More...]

[footer_backtotop]

Copyright © 2021 About | Privacy | Contact Information | Wrtie For Us | Disclaimer | Copyright License | Authors