SpyWare & Adware
Removal
By Thomas Swaney
Copyright ©2004
Protected
This article is about how to
remove Adware and Spyware from your computer. If your computer has slowed down
or just seems to now be possessed you may want to read this article. I will
guide you through the steps that I have taken many times to stop these annoying
problems. Although be advised you will take these steps at your own risk. The
author of this article will not accept responsibility for any loss of data,
etc. You will need to be alert and make sure to read very closely while
following the steps that I will give you. To shorten this article I do not
show you how to navigate through menus, download programs, or install programs.
I have to assume that you already know how to perform these actions. For a
professional to diagnose and remove the Adware and Spyware from your computer it
could cost you from $50.00-$400.00. This article will guide you
through the process of removing adware/spyware from your computer yourself
for only the cost of your time. First of all you will need an
internet connection to get started or a good friend that will not mind
retrieving the software downloads for you. This is probably how you acquired the
problem any way (having an internet connection not a having a friend) so
hopefully that isn't a problem although if it is a problem there are a few free
internet services out there that you could use but beware of the long distance
charges that could apply. Below you find a list of links to several free or
low cost internet services:
http://www.netzero.net/
http://www.juno.com/
I personally use NetZero when I am
away from my office/home. It has my local access numbers so it was the best
choice for me. There are several tools that you
will need to complete this task. Hopefully you have a high-speed internet
connection which will come handy while downloading the following tools from the
internet otherwise plan on taking a few coffee breaks or heck maybe even a lunch
break depending on your internet connection speed to download the following
files. If you do not have high-speed I would suggest that you find someone who
would download the following programs and copy them to a CD for
you.
You now have all of the tools that
should allow you to take care of the problem. You will need to install the
AntiVirus and adware removal software before going to the next step. When
installing the AntiVirus software please remember to get the latest virus
definitions and scan all of your drives in order to rid your system of any nasty
virus that may be lurking.
Removing Any Unnecessary
Programs
One of the first things that should
be done when troubleshooting is looking for suspicious programs that are
running.
Method
One
Look at the System Tray that holds
the clock at the bottom right-hand side of your screen. You can see icons for
programs that are currently running on your pc. If this tray is flooded with
icons or you see icons that belong to programs that you don’t recognize you will
need to address this problem. The first step in addressing this problem is
identifying the icons. You can hover your mouse over the icons to determine the
name of the program. If you have something that you don’t recognize you normally
can close the application by right clicking with your mouse on the icon and
choosing exit or close from the menu that appears. Some programs that I have
seen that could cause a problem are music download programs, weather forecasting
programs, and chat room/messenger programs. Any program that accesses the
internet to get data that is found in this System Tray will slow your computer
down at least minutely but certain programs could cause a drastic performance
difference. The best approach to this is to close each running application until
you determine that your computer is running at the speed you expect. You may
need to do a test of opening a document, going to websites, etc. to determine
the speed difference after closing each application that is in the System Tray.
Please note that if you close all programs in the System Tray at once you will
not be able to determine which of the programs could be causing the
problem.
Method
Two
You can see other programs that are
running by doing a CTRL+ALT+DELETE with your keyboard. Remember to press this
button combination only once otherwise your computer could
restart.
*PLEASE BE ALERT AND VERY CAREFUL
WITH THE FOLLOWING STEPS AS THEY COULD CAUSE YOUR COMPUTER TO LOCK UP, LOSE
UNSAVED DATA IF A DOCUMENT OR FILE IS OPEN, ETC.
Windows
95/98
You will see the Close Program
window appear with your currently running
programs.
Windows
XP/2000/NT
You will see a window appear that
says Windows Security and you will need to click the Task Manager Button.
Applications
Select the Application tab if it
isn’t already selected. You should see any running applications. If there are
applications that are suspicious like musicserver, adsearch, etc. and you don’t
know what they are I would select the application from the list and click the
End Task button. Sometimes it could take a few minutes for the application to
respond so be patient but if it doesn’t respond click it again and finally a
window will appear to allow you to end the task.
Processes
CAUTION: DO THE
NEXT STEPS AT YOUR OWN RISK due to ending some processes that Windows depends on
can make your computer to lockup, loose unsaved data or files,
etc.
Select the Processes tab. You
should see a CPU column in this window. If you click on this you can see the
process that is using most of the CPU processing power. Normally this should be
the System Idle Process but if you have other programs running that are acting
as servers or trying to access the internet continuously they may be the
culprit. If you have a question about a process go to the internet and search
with Google or whatever your favorite search engine is to find out what the
process is and what it is for. Usually there will be information about that
process if it is a valid windows process otherwise you may want to end that
process if it doesn’t look like it is legitimate.
INSTALLING ADWARE/SPYWARE
REMOVAL PROGRAMS
Normally I will use all
three to scan my client’s computers but just to be sure that I have removed
all of the problems. You could install either or all of them to
scan your computer if you wish. Although I would only have one that will run at
startup to reduce the performance hit. Ad-Aware has an option in the full
version to allow it to run at Windows startup also keeping your computer
protected like Spy Sweeper but again this is just another process that is
running that can slow the operation of your computer down. This is totally up to
you but I would monitor the speed once you have restarted Windows so that you
could determine if this slowed down your pc considerably. If the speed is
bearable (which it should be normally) I would take the performance hit for the
decrease in security risk of running your pc without this type of protection.
You can check this by going to websites or opening
applications after enabling this option.
Ad-Aware
Install the program onto your hard
drive. After installing the program you will have an Ad-aware icon located on
your desktop otherwise you can find it in your Start
menu:
1. Double-click the icon and the
program will appear as below:
2. You will now need to select the
“Check for updates now” link in the programs window. If there are any updates
let the program download and install the updates.
3. Leave the Select Scan Mode setting
as “Perform smart system-scan” and click the Next button and the scan should
begin.
4. Once the scan is complete you will
need to click the Next button to continue.
5. You will see a window appear that
tells you all of the files that were detected as adware or spyware if there are
any found, otherwise you will see a screen that has a Finish button. If you see
the screen with the finish button you should click Finish otherwise you will see
a screen as below. You can select the Obj checkbox to select the files that you
would like to remove or quarantine. Click the next button or the quarantine
button. If you choose to quarantine the files you will see a window appear
asking you to type in a name. I would suggest that you always include the date
in the name you give the file to signify when the files were quarantined if you
choose this option.
Spybot
Install the program onto your hard
drive. After installing the program you will have a Spybot icon located on your
desktop otherwise you can find it in your Start menu (the following directions
assumes that you have chosen the Spybot-S&D (easy mode)
:
1. Once you click on the icon the
Spybot program should appear. You should always Search for updates before
proceeding with the scan. So you will need to click the “Search for updates”
button. If there are any updates allow the program to download and install the
updates for you.
2. You will now need to click on the
Search & Destroy option in the left side of the program
window.
3. You will see the window appear as
below and you will need to click on the “Check for problems”
option.
4. The program will begin to scan your
files for potential adware/spyware programs or files. Once the scan is complete
you will see a window like the one shown below that should have the determined
problem files checked. I would suggest examining this list carefully to decide
if the selected files appear to belong to any of the programs that you are
currently using. You can double-click on any of the selected files in the list
and see more details about that file. All you would need to do is uncheck the
checkbox if the file is one that you wish to not remove. Note that there usually
will be some files in the list that are not already selected and you will need
to check them if you wish to fix them. You choose to print the files that the
program found or you can choose the “Fix selected problems” option at the bottom
of the program window.
5. You will see a message appear asking
if you are sure that you would like to do this. Click the Yes button if you are
sure that you have selected the correct files to
fix.
6. Once the process of fixing the files
has been completed you will see a window as in the picture
below.
Note: A message may
appear telling you that some files could not be fixed and must be fixed when
your computer restarts. If you see this message click the Yes button, finish the
following steps and restart your computer. A window will appear that finishes
the job and then your computer should start normally.
Finally
Finished
Once you have ran the program or
programs above you should have removed any virus, adware or spyware from your
computer and the best part is that you did yourself. You can take pride in doing
this yourself and you can now use these tools to keep the adware/spyware off of
your computer. Keep in mind that the software programs that you have just
installed and used to remove the adware/spyware have more options and settings
than I can list and if you wish to get more familiar with these programs you can
always read the Help documentation provided with the
program.
Backing
Up
There is one more thought that I
would like to pass along to you before I finish this article. Please remember to
backup any critical data on your computer regularly. You never know when a virus
or even a hard drive crash could destroy your data and believe me when I say
that I can relate to the countless hours that anyone can spend on their computer
creating files or researching information. The best way to do this is to buy an
external hard drive such as Western Digital offers
but they are somewhat costly. You could use the Windows Backup program to do the
backup also. Otherwise you could always use the old floppy disk for backing up
your files if you do not have a lot of files. I hope that this article has
helped you and you have learned something that can be of value to you for your
future problems.
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