No matter careful you may have been there is always a chance some malicious software has slipped through the cracks. Symptoms may crop up such as slow run speed, frequent ads when browsing, suspicious computer prompts, or just overall system instability. All is not lost though. Here are some step you can take to get your computer back to running condition.
- Safe mode The first step is to boot your computer in safe mode. The will allow you to begin maintenance your system without interference from any malware that
may be present.
- Delete Temporary Files Deleting temporary files will free up disk space, speeding up virus scan
- Download a Virus Scanner Virus Scanners aren’t the perfect solution to combating malware. A good portion of malware available will go undetected on a system, even if multiple scanners are run. Even so, it is important to run a scanner and have a antivirus active in order to catch the less sophisticated code.
- Malwarebytes Malwarebytes is the foremost effective malware scanners available for free. Download malwarebytes and follow the prompts to run a full scan on your system. After the scan is complete, it should have hopefully completed the finishing touches and cleaned up whatever malware the previous scanner may have missed.
- System Recovery If all else fails, and you still find your self with an infected system, you may have to resort to drastic measures. Rolling your system back with the system recovery tool can bring system back to before the infection. However, This also will mean any system settings or data created after the reset date will be lost. Be sure to back up any important documents before resorting to this method.
Malware: Avoidance and Removal 