Virus infection of a computer system is not the most pleasant situation, especially considering that some modern threats can disable the operating system and destroy or steal the user's personal data. Further it is offered to learn how to clean the computer infected with a virus using several options of actions and correspondingly applied tools. Running a little ahead, it should be noted that it is not worth relying on modern anti-virus programs, as in some cases manual intervention by the user may be required to remove or neutralize the virus threat.
How to clean your computer from viruses yourself: tools and actions used
Despite a fairly wide variety of protective equipment and tools in the form of specially designed programs, sometimes many of them are completely powerless against certain types of threats. In this case, it is a matter of the fact that it is problematic to clean the computer of viruses by conventional means only because some types of threats are disguised as trusted applications, supposedly representing affiliate software installed by the user in parallel with the main application. In addition, many such applets also have certificates of authenticity confirming security, and even digital signatures. In other words, regular or portable scanners may not detect such viruses. This also applies to an immediate threat, and potentially unsafe or unnecessary software.
In this regard, you can offer several standard techniques and tools:
- regular anti-virus modules;
- portable treatment programs;
- boot disk utilities;
- manual removal of viruses (most often applied to browser hijackers);
- cardinal actions.
How to clean your computer from viruses in Windows 7 or other operating systems using regular tools?
Most users do the right thing, not trusting the security tools built into Windows-systems, but installing third-party antivirus packages, which are head and shoulders superior in functionality to those developed by Microsoft. Why is that? Yes, only because the company itself is positioned precisely as a developer of operating systems and some other software products, and certainly not a manufacturer of computer security tools.
Thus, it is possible to clean the computer from viruses in the simplest way by calling the on-demand scan function. In this case, it is advisable to use the in-depth verification mode, otherwise complete cleaning will not work.
Portable applications and online scanners
Unfortunately, many stationary anti-virus programs can often skip threats, especially those that are introduced into Internet browsers in the form of add-ons or additional extensions. In this case, you can clean the computer of viruses without using standard modules (which have already missed the threat) using portable programs, among which you can find antiviruses, and anti-spyware, and anti-advertising tools.
The most famous and effective means for all occasions can be called parallel programs like Dr. Web CureIt !, KVRT and AdwCleaner. For them, one of the main conditions for full-featured work is updating anti-virus databases at each start. As well as in stationary programs, in them you can select objects to be scanned, including boot and hidden areas of hard drives and any removable media, independently. The advantage of their use is that they can be “clean”, while even a full-time antivirus can be infected.
Disk Utilities
If we talk about how to clean a computer with Windows 10 on board (or with a system version lower) from viruses, when the above means did not give a result (it is known that there is a virus, but it was not found, it is impossible to remove or neutralize the threat, etc. etc.), one of the most powerful tools you can recommend programs like Kaspersky Rescue Disk.
Their feature is that when recording to removable media, special files of the independent bootloader are stored on it. In other words, setting the device with the program first to boot through the BIOS, you can start the antivirus itself and check the computer before starting Windows. It is worth noting that such applications are capable of detecting such viruses that they choose random access memory as their habitat (neither regular nor portable programs might even dream of this).
Manual cleaning principles
Finally, to remove some types of threats that are only partly related to viruses (a group of unwanted Hijackers programs), you can also use manual removal.
As a rule, such software applets (with rare exceptions) are not particularly masked in the system, and you can find their processes in the same “Task Manager” or delete the main application files through the program and component section in the standard “Control Panel”.
The only important recommendation is to follow the entire sequence of actions necessary to remove the threat when the operating system starts in safe mode.
Approximate procedure
Let’s try to consider exactly what actions will be needed to clean the computer of viruses that the user has identified in the system on their own (for example, by viewing processes in the “Task Manager” with determining the location of the virus files and folders on the hard disk).
So the order could be like this:
- booting Windows in safe mode;
- completion of virus processes in the “Task Manager” with a preliminary determination of the location of the threat files on disk;
- disabling virus applets at startup (if any) through the system configurator (msconfig);
- standard removal of the main components of the virus through the section of programs and components of Windows;
- search by virus name and removal of residues in the system registry (regedit);
- Search and delete residual files and folders in the "Explorer" (or delete objects from a previously defined location);
- for browsers - checking the program shortcut (the path to the executable file should end only with the .exe extension without any additional annotations);
- full reboot in normal mode.
Note: to simplify all the above actions, you can use the iObit Uninstaller uninstaller utility (the program allows you to clean your computer from viruses in two accounts, and it finds and removes application residues automatically). If you still use manual removal, sometimes you first need to delete the registry keys, and only then proceed to uninstall the main program.
Complete cleaning using cardinal methods
As for how to completely clean the computer of viruses, there are two options: either restore Windows before the virus was already in the system, or format the hard drive (fast or full).
Keep in mind that after quick formatting you can recover files, but this also applies to objects related to deleted virus threats.
Instead of an afterword
In general, to summarize, it is easy to figure out that there is nothing particularly complicated even in manual cleaning of the system from all kinds of virus threats. By the way, the above procedure for neutralizing, for example, browser hijackers, is almost always used and is a universal option if no anti-virus utilities detect the introduced threat or cannot delete it.
However, it is worth paying special attention to the use of uninstall programs. They are good because they delete applications, and find keys with files and folders, and allow you to uninstall add-ons or various additional panels of any browser. Even applets embedded in the operating system cannot be removed with their help.