How to Remove Spyware and Protect Your Machine from Malicious Programs - A Beginner's Guide

These steps should get your system in much better shape but there are cases where the infestation is so pervasive that you may be better off simply reformatting your system and beginning from scratch. These types of programs continue to evolve and I advise you to do your own research before proceding.

Here are the steps I follow.

Download the following programs -

Different people and websites will tell you that their product or combination of products will save you from all the evil software abounding today. There are lots of solutions around. Some of them charge and some of them are free. For a personal machine the programs below do not charge and this is the mix of programs I have settled on and that work for me most of the time. If the computer you are working on cannot access these files then download them to another PC and burn a CD or put them on a USB drive.

Spyware Removal Tools - none of these will remove all the nasties but used together most of the infestation is cleaned up.
- Spybot Search and Destroy - This program does not catch everything but some of the programs it catches cannot be gotten by anything else.
- Adaware SE Personal Edititon by Lavasoft - There are two levels of scanning. I reccommend doing a complete or thourough scan.
- Win Patrol - This shows what is starting up on your system. Sometimes this is helpful to catch things the others miss.
- Microsoft Windows Antispyware Beta - This is free right now from Microsoft and it will require that you validate your version of Windows.
Virus Protection - If you don't have one yet this is a good program
- AVG Free Personal - This won't help with the spyware but it is a good antivirus program that is free for personal use.
A Safer Browser - A lot of the spyware you get is downloaded because of vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer
- Mozilla Firefox - Firefox is awesome and will solve many spyware problems. Here are some of the reasons I reccommend Downloading and using Firefox.
  - Popup Blocking - built in popup blocker.
  - Tabbed Browsing - Open links in the background so that they're ready for viewing
  - Does not load Active X - This keeps your computer safe from malicious spyware
  - Google Search built into the toolbar
  - Find bar at the bottom of the page seeks for your word as you type it.
  - Read the latest news headlines from a drop down list on the bar.
  - Files are downloaded to the desktop so they're easy to find

Update each program. Spyware changes all the time and the makers of these programs continually update. Even a newly downloaded copy will need to be updated before using. Start each program and look until you find the update option.

Start in Safe Mode. Often you need to restart your machine in safe mode to run your scans. When you start in safe mode you have several options. I choose the one with networking support so you can connect to the network and update your programs prior to scanning. Safe mode is a way of starting your system without loading any unnecessary drivers or software such as hijackers and spyware. Click below to learn how to start your system in safe mode.

Scan. Use Adaware and Spybot Search and Destroy to scan your system. The other programs need to be used in regular mode. In my experience it is safe to remove anything Spybot or Adaware find.

Remove Unwanted software. Use the Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel and remove programs that you no longer want. If you aren't sure try searching for the program name in Google. If your system is running really slow sometimes just getting rid of programs such as Weather Bug that run in the background all the time will help your system run a bit faster.

Delete Temporary Files. First search for all folders named temp or temporary and delete all the files in them. To find these files go to [start], [search], [all files and folders], [more advanced options], and choose system files as well as hidden files and folders. Next look for and delete all the files with the extension tmp. To do this use the same process above but with the search term [*.tmp] (without the brackets).

Scan. Restart in regular mode and scan again with Adaware, Spybot, Microsoft, and AVG.

Now that you've gotten this far you may be in good shape. If it is a persistent infestation you may need to disable the System Restore and then restart in safe mode and follow the above steps again. If you disable the System Restore remember to Enable it when you are done scanning.

martyd@martyd.com