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Keeping your computer free from viruses and malware is one of the essential tasks of maintaining it. It’s crucial to use the correct tools to prevent your computer getting infected. But sometimes malicious things manage to slip through or your protective measures or they fail without you realizing. If you think your computer might be infected with a virus or malware, it can be difficult to remove it completely. Sometimes the only thing you can do is reinstall everything, including the operating system. But if you follow this guide you can have a better chance of repairing your machine and hopefully avoiding having to wipe it and start over.
Determine If Your Computer is Infected
The first thing you need to do is work out whether your computer is infected with something. You might have noticed some symptoms, such as slow performance, but don’t immediately jump to malware as the cause of your problems. The easiest way to detect malware, viruses and other infections on your computer is to use software that will pick up on them. To get the best results, it’s a good idea to use different programs to perform scans, in case one of them misses something. There are lots of free options available to help you find any issues, but you can also pay for tools that will detect and try to remove malware too.
Clean the Computer
Once you have determined that you do have an infection on your machine, you need to remove it. If you’ve used a tool to find it, it’s very likely that it will also be able to remove it. However, if it can’t, you will need to find another program to use. You may also be able to get rid of the infection manually by searching for the files you need to delete. If you have tried to remove it yourself and nothing appears to be working, take it to a professional service. They have more experience ridding computers of infections and know where to look.
Repair the Operating System
Sometimes by the time you have removed the infection, it’s too late, and it has damaged your operating system. In these cases, you often have to reinstall the system, but there are other things you can try first. There are tools you can use to attempt to repair any damage so you can avoid taking more drastic steps. For example, you can look at this Reimage review to see what these programs can do to fix your computer. Reimage can scan for problems, removed any infections and then repair the damage they caused.
Reinstall
If nothing else works, you may have no choice but to reinstall your operating system. This process is inconvenient, but it can be the best and sometimes only way to get your healthy computer back. Backup your important files before you start reinstalling and remember to install malware protection once you’re up and running again.
Finding a virus or malware on your computer is frustrating, but there’s a good chance you can recover it. After following these steps, you should have a healthy computer, one way or another.