PC FirstAid

March 30th, 2010

Note: This is a development page; a living document if you will…

The focus of this page is to address issues of Microsoft Windows Spyware/Malware or infectious problematic issues and possible ways to resolve those problems. This information is presented to those who would’ve or have system issues with viruses or Spyware/Malware .

While this is not a step by step how to; it provides links and information to tools that should be able to help you remove the problem issues.

Not everything is 100%, so depending on the severity of your issue, it may or may not be able to be resolved. It’s important to backup your system, from time to time. If you’re not currently doing a backup, use this as a wake up call to start.

System Startup Manager

A majority of the issues are going to be stemming from your start-up programs [programs that start automatically when the PC boots]. The start-up menu is a breeding ground for trouble. The goal is to infect your system and keep infecting it so it never goes away. The way to keep it there is to keep infecting you each time you reboot.

AUTORUNS
As mentioned, Spyware will attach it’s self to the system start-up folder and in the registry.

If you’ve enough knowledge of your system, you should be able to understand the processes listed and then if you don’t recognize them, you can disable them.

The entries are not removed; just disabled. This allows you to basically weed out programs/processes that don’t belong.

Besides the start-up’s, AUTORUNS gives you a lot more options and information.

Reference

Free Anti-virus Scanners

Anti-virus is really a necessity nowadays. PC’s should never be connect to a network without something; some form of anti-virus protection loaded. And while 90% of the software packages for anti-virus on the market is real-time, this doesn’t mean your 100% safe- never will.

And like scanning for Spyware, scanning with a separate anti-virus program occasionally will help you keep piece of mind. Weekly, monthly or quarterly is well enough.

CLAMAV [portableapps]
ClamAV is NOT real-time scanning. It’s a on-demand anti-virus scanner. It’s perfect for a second line of defense or trying to weed out viruses that may have already compromised the existing anti-virus software.

The interface is super easy to use. Once it’s started, press the scan button at the bottom.

If you’ve Internet access, it’ll auto update itself.

For a more regular and real-time scanning solution:

AVIRA

AVAST! [Free for personal use]*

AVG [Free for personal use]

Comodo

Comodo System Cleaner Portable

Panda Cloud anti-virus [freeware]

Dr. Web [malware and antivirus]

Also:

Free anti-virus options.

Free Spyware/Malware Scanners

You need to have a program to scan your system for spyware, how else you gonna find it and if you already have one, it doesn’t hurt to have another one to just cross check. One might find one the other won’t.

Spybot – Search and Destroy
This is a free program, well respected over the Internet. It’s compact, fast, auto-updates and does it’s job.

There’s also a ‘TEATIMER’ application; it watches changes to the registry and your start-up folder. I recommend using this during the de-bugging process. As you kill services or uninstall applications, they may try to reinstall themselves and TEATIMER will warn you and BLOCK the applications from doing anything.

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It can be scheduled:
C:\Program Files\Spybot – Search & Destroy\SpybotSD.exe /autoupdate /autocheck /autoclose

*Vista64 – for this to work unattended, set the SPYBOTSD.EXE to compatibility mode of Windows XP.

Ad-Aware
This is another standard malware scanner; it directly competes with S&D. It has a good reputation and if used would surely provide adequate protection and services.

Get it here

Registry Scanner

Over the course of many weeks, months and years the backbone of the Windows Operating System can get bogged down with a bunch of extra crap, and frankly, all it does is slow your system down. Luckily, there are many people out there that know this and have the programming ability to resolve this for you; and it’s free for personal use.

For this process, I recommend WISE REGISTRY CLEANER.

Download Link

System Scheduler

Once you get the system clean; keep it clean. I have never liked MS task scheduler. This application is awesome. It’s free and there is a professional version, but this one is nice and it’s very easy to use.

The GUI is simple. The [free] program runs as a application, but the pro version can be ran as a service.

Of course this is intended for single user machines, but if you need security, there’s other options to look at when needing to schedule stuff out AND reluctantly you can always go back to the default way with Windows.