Spyware - should I reformat?

newnhak

Hi

I have a big issue with my PC at the moment. Loads of spyware in it and everytime I run a virus checker it finds loads of things so I obviously still have things in my PC that are not being found.

I am therefore wondering if I ought to reformat and start again. The added complication though is that I do not have a legit copy of windows and so the only OS I have that I could load back on is Linux Ubuntu.

Any tips on what steps I should take would be useful. My harddrive is partitioned and all the stuff I want to keep onto my D drive.

Thanks

K

TonyLisaP

Why don't you boot up into safe mode and run the spyware software that way? When the pc starts to boot up hit the F8 key as soon as it starts loading the operating system and select safe mode.
If you are not running a legit version of windows it isn't a good idea to reinstall is it?

jje_2

One assumes putting a non -legit windows back it will fail the activation process unless its a corp version even then the key may be blacklisted .

jje

TonyLisaP

Ubuntu is good, if you just use your machine for Internet surfing and email, that type of thing. It is a lot more secure than Windows. I run it under a VM session and have never had any problems.

rdpro

Antiviruses rarely remove spyware, unless they display virus-like activity.

Run crapcleaner (www.ccleaner.com) then run AdAware or something similar in safe mode.