How do the professionals remove Viruses, Trojans and Spyware etc. from Windows based computers, for free

Computer Slow?

So your computers running a little (or a lot) slower than it normally does is it?

Wondering if you've got a Virus, Trojan or Spyware? read on...

This is one of the first things we do for Windows based systems at our local computer shop when you bring your computer in for us to fix. We are going to use four different scans to ensure a good job. It will take quite a few hours to complete, so make sure you have plenty of time. There are long periods that do not require your input, and could be used to do other jobs. But I would strongly urge you to do these scans back to back and not be tempted to surf the net until there completed

Just follow these simple steps to make sure your running on a clean machine, it wont do any harm only good and best of all it's completely free!

1. If you can get onto the Internet, you need to download, install and run two programs. If you can't access the Internet at all then I suggest you use another computer to download the software, then burn it to CD and use that to get you started. Failing that contact your local computer shop for help.

The first program is called 'Malwarebytes' click here, follow the links for the 'download free version' and download the program mbam.exe to your desktop, it's very small (3.4MB) so shouldn't take long. Once the download has completed, double click on the mbam program and install it. You may get a warning about executable programs, click OK to continue.

Language selection

Click OK

Then let the wizard guide you through the install process, click next...

Click on the box next to 'I accept the agreement' then click next

Click next

Finally click install

Click finish and wait a while

How long you have to wait will depend on your internet connection speed. But eventually this dialogue box will open up. Click on the option to 'perform full scan' and press the 'scan' button

Another dialogue box opens up, asking which drives you want to scan. The more you select the longer and more thorough the scan will be. You should at least include your C drive as shown here. Then click on the 'start scan' button

The first scan of your computer now starts, this can take a long time. How long depends on the size and speed of your computer. So if you have something else to do, away from the computer now is the time to do it. But don't use the computer, leave that along to complete the scan. When it does complete the window will look something like this...

Click OK

At this point you may have hundreds of items detected, don't worry just click 'show results'

Now just click 'remove selected'

A log file will open up showing how long the scan took and listing the items detected. Close this by clicking on the cross in the red box, in the top right hand corner

Click yes

At this point, Malwarebytes may shutdown and restart your computer, or it may not. This happens in order for it to remove some of the more embedded little pests and registry entries

2. Once completed it time to move onto step number two. This is another free download from the Internet. Click here and follow the links to download 'Spybot search and destroy' from any of the mirrors listed, again to your desktop. This will take a little longer than Malwarebytes did as its a bit bigger. Once downloaded, you need to install it. Double click on spybotsd162 (the number may change, don't worry) to start the wizard. Like before you may get a warning about executable files, just click OK