Do you suspect that your computer has been infected by a virus or some other type of malware? Identifying and assessing the nature of the infection is necessary to properly restore your system. In most cases, viruses and other malware can be effectively removed without any permanent damage being done to your system.
The absolute best way to deal with a virus is to not receive one in the first place, obviously. But the next best thing is to have antivirus software installed to protect your system and deal with threats automatically. Quality antivirus programs can scan your computer and detect any viruses or harmful malware that may have infiltrated your system. They can also scan new items before they are opened or executed to ensure that they are safe. New viruses appear every day, and it's the job of these antivirus companies to stay on top of monitoring them. A good antivirus program is routinely updated with a new database of info to combat the new malicious programs. When a virus or other threat is detected, your antivirus program will alert you and ask you what action you would like to take. In most cases, the problem can either be removed or quarantined.
Even if you have antivirus software installed, certain viruses and malware can still slip through the cracks and make it into your machine. This is usually a result of an outdated antivirus program or an unusually new and sophisticated virus (more often the former). If you believe your computer is showing signs of being infected, the first thing you need to do is research the symptoms that you are experiencing. Just like in the world of medicine, the problem can be identified by analyzing the symptoms and systematically ruling out other problems based on the symptoms. Your biggest clues come in the form of error messages. More often than not, the error message will be full of technical jargon and difficult to understand. In order to get to the bottom of it, try running a Google search of your error message and see what comes up. You're likely to find helpful information that has already been given to others that were once in your situation, puzzled by the same error message. Be sure to search the error message in quotation marks, to ensure that you will find the most relevant info.
If you do not have the benefit of error messages to guide you in the right direction, the task of determining the cause of your computers irregular behavior will be a bit more difficult. Don’t be afraid to do a little testing of your own to see if you can pinpoint the problem area. For example, if your computer crashes every time you attempt to play an mp3 with Windows Media Player, then try doing a Google search and type in a few keywords that describe that problem and see what you find.
Some viruses and malware can be discovered by opening the task manager and clicking the "processes" tab. Several processes will be displayed, some vital to the functionality of your system and others run by additional applications you may have installed. Make yourself familiar with what processes are normally running, that way if something strange appears in the future, you will know to investigate it. By simply doing a Google search of a process in question you will find detailed information about it, including it's purpose and whether or not it may be a threat.
If all of the above has failed and you are still experiencing problems that you believe are caused by a virus or another form of malware, you may want to take your system in to a technician to have them assess the problem. However, with the vast amount of information, resources, and antivirus applications available online, this should be reserved as a last resort. In some cases, viruses can damage computers bad enough that they cannot be restored to their original capacity without doing a complete reformat, which means losing all data on the machine. For this reason, you should routinely back up important information stored on your computer.
