Can’t Remove Virus

Viruses have become more and more complex and sophisticated and are beginning to win the war in the struggle to keep our Windows machines clear of infections. So what do you do when you can’t remove a virus? You can certainly reformat and reinstall the Operating System. While that is the preferred method when dealing with a massive virus infection, it’s not an option for everyone. The following may help you remove a stubborn virus if you cannot get rid of it with traditional means.

Techniques For Removing Viruses

Acting quickly will help you fight a virus. The longer you wait, the more your machine can become compromised and locked down to the point where you can’t even work. If you have a machine that has a virus, you should not keep it plugged into a working Internet connection unless you are attempting to download removal tools, as the virus will take that opportunity to download more viruses and update itself to counter anything you try to do.

Reboot into Safe Mode by tapping the F8 key when fist booting. Be sure to select Safe Mode With Networking, as you will need to get online. Next, open your web browser and download the Malwarebytes program from Malwarebytes.org. Use the free version, for now. Allow Malwarebytes to update itself, then perform a full scan of your computer and any attached hard drives. It might take a while, depending on the size of the drives. View and remove anything it flags. The machine will want to reboot to finish the cleaning.

There is a chance this will not work.  If you continue to get the pop-ups and still see other signs of infection, you must reboot and go back into Safe Mode. You should try a System Restore to revert the registry back to a date prior to infection. If you know you were infected on, say, Tuesday, then go back to the previous Tuesday. A lot of times, this technique will work and the virus will be gone.

If that doesn’t help. Go back into Safe Mode and look in your C: drive in the Windows folder, then the Temp folder. Viruses will typically root themselves there. Remove everything unless you know the files belong to something else. Fighting viruses this way is akin to pulling weeds out by the roots. Keep in mind that you might accidentally damage the Operating System if you delete something you are not supposed to.

You should next go into Add/ Remove Programs in the control panel and uninstall any toolbars you might have installed. Some toolbars could be defined as spyware and you do not need them. These are sometimes referred to as Browser Helper Objects (BHO). You can quickly remove them using a program called Hijack This.

Once these are removed, visit the Eset website and run their online virus scanner. It will scan and remove viruses. Vitis the Eset Online Virus Scanner. After you run the scan and it removes any viruses it finds, be sure to visit Microsoft Update and get any updates you’re missing. Then find a good antivirus, such as AVG or Microsoft Security Essentials and allow it to update itself automatically.