computer viruses & antivirus programs

Post by **toad857** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:43 pm

rather than screw around with google (which has lost 99% of its search engine integrity over the years, it seems) I thought i'd ask real people.

will antivirus programs (like Norton) actively REMOVE a virus from a badly infected pc? it seems like they are only preventive measures, rather than fixing a pc that is really screwed up... those things are too expensive to just take their word for it....

Post by **Wes** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:45 pm

fdisk

Post by **ReachHigh** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:51 pm

booting off of some other media or pulling the hard drive is about your best bet, its about impossible to correctly scan and repair from an already infected operating system. Wes's advice isn't bad either.

Post by **ynot** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:52 pm

grisoft removes them or quarantines them. I liked it better than the CA security I have now.

Post by **Andrew** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:53 pm

Do I need to say it...

buy a mac.

or do what wes said, f that disk

Post by **Canuck** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 10:00 pm

I've dealt with 4 viruses on 4 separate computers in the last six weeks (3 were not my fault... I just got to clean up the mess). In all cases, MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware (which is free) did a better job of finding and assisting in removal of the virus (or pieces of the virus) than Norton.

As for the virus that was my fault... it appears it got downloaded when I clicked the "close" button on an obnoxious pop-up ad. Scary.

Post by **krampus** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 10:14 pm

dude, you really got to pay attention to where you get your porn from. I don't even use antivirus protection and have only had 2 viruses ever, at which point I just reload windows, which I like to do every 6 months or so anyway.

Post by **Myke Dronez** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 10:58 pm

wipe those pc's like feces- call in the air cavalry

Post by **pkananen** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:03 am

i went for years without virus software on a pc w/o problems. no i have gone a year without a pc without problems, as well.

Post by **bcombs** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:54 am

In general, there are only a few registry keys that need to be cleaned up to remove even the most stubborn spyware. There are a few ways that processes are started on boot on Windows machines.

If you can do it, takes ReachHigh's recommendation and move the drive into another machine for cleaning. Or, boot to Windows PE and clean the registry from there. I think AVG offers a free stand alone install that runs from WinPE.

Wes has been on a Mac for too long, these days it's boot to Windows PE and run diskpart.