DIY Computer Repair

Being a fairly nice nerd, most days, nothing gets me mad faster than computer scams, scammers, malware and spyware. Getting malware on your windows machine, really bites.

Like swarms of deer flies or horse flies they really spoil the picnic.

We're going to be cleaning out all the garbage slowing things down and helping to make your system run much faster and smoother.

If you're the slight bit adventurous and have all your important stuff BACKED UP, then you might wonder how you go about checking for and cleaning your system of these pests, before it ever becomes a real problem.

Wonder no more, by following this guide you can DIY and Clean the Malware and Spyware off of your computer system!

Please keep in mind if you do decide to forgo the shop and try this, you do so at your own risk and undertake full responsibility for any steps you choose to perform. Please research each step yourself so you understand what each is doing.

Computers are complex devices. I accept no responsibility for you screwing your computer up.

Again, BACKUP your important pictures, documents etc, to an external drive or USB stick, just in case. You should have done this long ago and should always stay on top of this!!

NOTE: If your computer is kaboodled to the point where you can't even get online but you can boot into windows, then you will need another PC (desktop/laptop) to download these and put them on a USB stick. NOT one that's ever been used on the infected machine.

If your computer won't start up and you don't know how to figure out what's happening, you should probably consider consulting a computer repair service.

Download all of these by clicking each and accepting the download; don't just trust my links though, you can google these yourself. These downloads are for 64 bit Operating Systems. If you require 32 bit, you will have to google for those. Some of these aren't available for that architecture (good article explaining the difference, WARNING there's no TL;DR - too long didn't read version).

Save to downloads first, then copy to a clean stick after if you need:

1. Rkill

2. MalwareBytes Anti-Malware

3. Adware Cleaner

4. Super Anti-Spyware - Free

3. NEXT: Run Adware Cleaner by hitting the SCAN button, then press CLEAN after the scan process is complete. This one is pretty quick at scanning so don't go too far ;)

It will ask you to reboot after, you can go ahead at this point and allow it to.

Allow MBAM to finish each step and if there are any threats, like mine, hit Quarantine Selected

Malware / Spyware Removal

How to clean your computer in 5 steps:

1. Run rkill.exe

This little gem kills (stops) ghosted and malicious processes, takes out registry policies that can prevent normal operating system (OS) processes and it repairs file extension hijacks. Rkill What it does and doesn't is a good explanation of what this software does!

It will open one of those black magic DOS looking window, don't be alarmed, this is how it works. It will pop up a text window after telling you what actions it took. Read if you want, then close it. DO NOT REBOOT AFTER COMPLETING THIS STEP.

Immediately follow step 2.

2. Run malwarebytes and follow the steps in the images below; to make sure to turn on the scan for rootkits option.

Depending on infection levels, you may or may not have time to read reddit, in the only acceptable place a nerd like me considers, the crapper :p

4. LAST: Run Super Anti-Spyware. This one will look for unwanted programs and will take out many, many cookies. Based on roughly 500 systems, this can catch some things the others don't; I added this into mix for my own process from the very start.

You can run through the defaults for the install, but I suggest to save some time you UNCHECK both the check for recent definitions and the submit a system diagnostic, then continue the install normally.