====== Removing Malware and Spyware ======

"My computer is running slow." - I hear this all the time. Chances are, said computer is infected with some sort of virus/toolbar/Spyware/Malware. Congratulations, you probably did it to yourself. Some of these pests people freely download. Shop at home toolbar? ✔ AOL any toolbar? ✔ Any desktop weather tool? ✔ Daily Bible Verse/Horoscope/Stock tip? ✔ Coupon printer? ✔\\
These are all toolbars that slow down your Internet use and/or your computer overall.\\
Did you download an anti-virus tool from a popup ad? Bingo! How about a speed check or PC health checkup? Bingo again.\\

It is time to clean all of that stuff off. Now for a secret. This is what I do when I clean/tweek someone's computer at $50 an hour.\\

===== Tools =====

You will need a few tools. Computer tools, no trip to The Home Depot here. Get yourself a USB drive. Now with a different computer, not the infected one we are going to download some tools. Copy all of these to your USB drive.
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^Tool^Link^Download Instructions^
||WinPatrolToGo|[[http://www.winpatrol.com/download.html]]|Go to the downloads page. Make sure to get the to go version.|
|Revo Uninstaller|[[http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html]]|Make sure to get the free version|
|AdwCleaner|[[http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/dl/125/]]|Wait a second for the download to start.|
|SmiteFraudFix|[[http://siri.geekstogo.com/SmitfraudFix.php]]|More advanced. Some of the documentation is in French. Live with it.|
\\
===== Getting started =====
It is going to be best if you copy all of these tools to the desktop on the infected computer. Then start WinPatrolToGo. It is an .exe and does not need to install. Your startup screen should look like this:
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Look at your startup programs. This is a clean example. Look for things that start toolbars. If you see something that should not be on this list, make a note of it, but do not Remove it. Next look at the Active Tasks. Once again, right now we are looking for information. After you have written down the information on an active task and determined it should not be running, you can kill it. **NOTE:** Some viruses cannot be stopped with this tool. 
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You want the path information on the info page. "C:\program files\vmware\wmaretools\vmtoolsd.exe" in this case. VMWare tools is not a virus.\\
Now look at the IE Helpers. Kill off ones for tool bars. Especially AVG or other Anti-virus tool bars.