Your computer restarts itself, it is slow, when you open too many programs it
hangs.
Sound familiar? Well maybe you have a virus, a
trojan, or some spyware. Then again maybe your system needs a tune
up!
Different errors require different approaches to fixing the problem
that caused the errors.
I get this question asked of me in my e-mail and
some of the forums I post to almost daily so here goes...
When your system gets infected with a virus, spyware, or a trojan one of the
first indictors is the speed of your computer, it just drags. You open your
e-mail and it take forever to finally open. You open your browser and all the
sudden you have pop ups all over the place. You open your document in your word
processor and as soon as the document loads the program either hangs or shuts
down.
Once you have the programs installed and the latest updates you need to
restart your system, for Windows 2000, XP,
Vista, and Windows 7 you should go into the
'Safe Mode' to clean up your system. You get into the 'Safe Mode'
by pressing the F6 key on restart. On some of the newer computers you
have to be fast, as soon as the
screen blinks from the BIOS start up into
'Starting Windows' splash screen press the F6 key. You will know if you were
fast enough a menu will display in black and white on your monitor. Select 'Safe
Mode'. You will see a list of the drivers the Operating System ( OS ) loads
behind the loading Windows splash screen, it will take a couple of minutes
before the 'Safe Mode' screen shows up. You will have to say 'ok' to the fact
that the 'Safe Mode' is running not the normal mode. Also you have to have
'Administrator' rights for your normal ID or know the Administrators user ID and
password to log on in 'Safe Mode'.
Log on, wait until the desktop loads. Don't worry about the screen
resolution, it is set for 800x600 by default. You can change the resolution but
the next time you use 'Safe Mode' it will be back to 800x600.
Now you can run your anti virus, spyware, and trojan programs and clean
your system of infections. (Be aware this process will
take some time to complete, you are scanning your system with three different
programs).
When you are done cleaning up the infections you should do a
defrag of
your hard drive before going back to normal mode.
I will explain why you should do these cleanup tasks in 'Safe Mode'. When you
start the computer with the minimum resources the programs you are using can
access device drivers, special programs, and other programs that are running
when you start the system normally. When these are running the cleanup
programs can not scan, clean, or move them because they are not 'locked'.
When you have finished cleaning and defragging your hard drive you could
complete your tune up with doing some optimization of your OS by following this link.
Something else you may want to consider after your install your new anti
virus, spyware, and trojan software is increasing your security, by adding a router between your
computer and the internet the router will stop viruses, spyware, and trojans from sending
your data back to the thieves that infected your computer. It will also allow
you to 'hide' your computer from hackers.
In this day and age of computers you can not stop all the malicious software
that will try to invade your computer but you can root it out and keep it from
sending your data back to the unscrupulous people that will rob you blind.
If you have done all the above and still have problems short of reloading the
Operating System you can try XP Registry repair - Click Here!
This site contains a lot of information. As
with any publication not all information is available due to space, time, or
subject constraints.
If you have a question that you did not find the answer
on this web site you a can
ask your question here and we will endeavor to get you the most up to date
answer possible!
