Like I was saying yesterday, there are a bunch of people getting viruses. There are millions of people with the conficker virus still. So how do you get rid of them?

Well, I will show you some of my techniques in getting rid of these nasty viruses. You see i have been in the computer field for about 10 years now, most of it was programming, but for about 6 years now it has been on virus removal. So I have come up with my own ways of doing it.

The removal process would be extremely long and hard if it wasn’t for people who have created wonderful programs. I will have a link to every program so you can download and fix your computer.

How do I get rid of a computer virus? (for windows)
First, I need to let you know, that any of the advice I give you, you must do at your own risk. I can not help you, and do not be asking me for help for free. I own a business, and if you want me to clean up your computer you can either bring the computer by, or have me come over and fix it. Or I can do a remote cleaning process, which I do not recommend, as it can get expensive if your computer is extremely bad.

Now that you know the risks involved, and that you could end up messing up your computer, let me tell you how I fix computers.

First thing you do is press F8 when booting to start in “Safe mode with networking”
Log into the Administrator user.
Open up a browser, and head over to http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix
Please note that bleepingcomputer.com is the ONLY site you should download combofix from. You will then need to download the combofix.exe file. They have a guide their too, which is good to read.
Make sure to save it to your desktop, and then close out of everything, and double click on it. It will make sure you downloaded it from the right source, and will ask you a few questions. just answer them to the best of your ability. Pretty much you can just accept and say yes to everything. it should be fine, but read it carefully anyway, as they do change ever week.

You may need to restart the computer a few times, depending on how bad your computer is. Once finished a notepad log will come up. You do not have to worry about it, but I always look through it to see what was created in the past few days. It’s really good information if you know what your doing. Restart computer.

I then recommend download Spybot Search & Destroy.
When installing it, make sure to turn off teatimer, as it is annoying to people who do not even know what is running on their computer. Read everything carefully, I can not stress that enough. Even if you don’t understand it, reading it will help you choose the best possible answer.

Once installed, open it up, and click on update. Update it 😛 Make sure to click all the check boxes. And hit update. Once updated, close out of everything and open Spybot back up. Click on immunize, and have it immunize the system. Then click mode and go to advance mode. on the bottom left you should see tools. click on that. on the right hand side you should now see a bunch of check boxes, go ahead and click them all. Back on the left side you should now see BHOs. Click on that, then on the right you should see a bunch of stuff or nothing. Click on each one without a green check mark and then hit remove at the top. (Doing this may an addon or toolbar you wanted, but I think you don’t really “need” it.)

Now on the left hand side click on ActiveX, and do the same process. now go to System Startup. This part is the hard part, and is really up to you. I would first uncheck anything that is red. Other then that, you can shut off certain things from starting up here.

Now click on SPYBOT S&D at the top left. Then click on Search & Destroy. And then click on Check for Problems. Have it run all the way through(may take an hour or 3), then click all the check boxes, and click “Fix Selected Problems”.

Go to start>run then enter in msconfig and hit enter. uncheck “load startup items”.

Ok, now you I would do a restart. All if not most of your problems are now gone. once loaded a popup should come up saying you changed settings just x out of it.

Now, this is where you need to decided what to install and run.
I recommend if you do not know anything about computers, is to install AVG. They have a free and a paid version. I recommend the free version. They will try selling it to you, just make sure you keep with the free. And you do not want all their advanced features, trust me.

Now if you know about computers, and you know a good amount of what I have been talking about, then I recommend getting AVAST. this program is really good at getting viruses out and keeping them out. But it is difficult to use at first. It has a really nice startup scan too. Which I recommend running.

Now that you got that Virus Protector installed, update, run it, delete viruses. Unfortunately I can not go step by step, or this post would be double it’s size. I also recommend after you have installed all of that to install threatfire. Not sure exactly if this program works, but it seems to do a good job keeping stuff out of my computer. Only get this program if you have a fast computer.

I also recommend getting a firewall. I recommend Kerio. Although I am not sure if the new one is any good, as I have a very old version of it. They no longer have a free version either. But I’m sure there are good firewalls out there.

I also recommend getting CCleaner. And once you are finished go start>all program>accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter and run that. I hope you have at least 15% of your space free 🙂

Remember to surf safely, so you never have to run into a virus.

~Joshua