Spybot Search & Destroy

A free tool to scan a Windows PC for malicous trojan, spyware and worm infections.

Get it here: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Note: Please be very careful to only use this specific website. As this this a very effective tool to remove unwanted software, several people interested in your data, especially your credit card info etc. have set up rogue sites which look almost identical. You will even be able to download a "special" version of SSND from their website.

Download it and install. During installation, the only thing you have to look out for is to uncheck "Teatimer". It is a little bit too chatty and complicated for the average user.

Here is how to set it up properly:

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Very important. uncheck "tea timer"!

This concludes the installation process. Before you can use SSND, you will have to adjust some settings. It is very easy and a post-installation wizard will help you through this:

The most important thing to do is make a backup of your registry! 99 of 100 cases all is well, nothing goes wrong. But if, it is always good to have a registry backup.

Next important step: Check for malware signature updates:

Select ALL updates. Then click on the "download" button. Whan this process is done, you would normally click on "Exit". Sometimes, when SSND itself it updated, it restarts on its own.

This is it. You could now start scanning your system. For a better experience, especially on an older, slower PC system, lets set one setting in the system preferences:

Click on "Mode" > "Advanced Mode"

Click on "Settings".

Finally, set "Scan Priority" to "Idle". Setting this to "idle" makes using the PC while SSND is scanning possible, otherwise, especially on slower PCs, Windows becomes unbearably slow.

And lets go back to the main window:

Done.

OK, lets check your system for unwanted "guests":

Note: This will take some time. As you may notice (lower left corner of SSND) the amount of malware, trojans, spiders, etc. is huge. It has to check for more than 500,000 possible candidates. So scanning this when you are not planning to use your computer is a good idea.

While it is scanning: Did you notice the vertical bar with two blue arrows pointing left in the right corner of the main window?

If you click on that bar you will get (most of the time) more detailed description about what SSND has found. For instance, what the malware it found does.

Eample: This example contains only mildly irritating malware, tracking cookies, that are known to be used by malware to pinpoint you on the net for other attacks.

When SSND is done, click on "Fix selected problems" to do just that. Check carefully, if all the found problems have a green checkmark in front of them after SSND is done fixing them. If not, it will prompt you to try to fix these after a restart. If that still does not work, you have caught a very tenacious "guest". You have to boot into Windows Safe-Mode and try SSND again. If that particular "guest" still does not want to leave, last resort will be booting from an external source (DVD/CD with Windows PE, etc.) and try SSND or other software again.

Still no luck? Well, looks like it's time to wipe the hard disk and reinstall Windows.

Just remember to not install the same software that infected your computer in the first place afterwards.