Virus problem

[oldboy47]

I've just spent much time cleaning systems of a virus infection (using Malwarebytes and MS Essentials). Without fully re-formatting drives/installing all software afresh /deleting various history backups/etc. what can I do to check/confirm that my systems are now clean?

Much appreciated

[g8ina]

Make a boot disk of AVG Free and a boot disk of Spybot, kills 99.9999% of all known germs.

[Phage]

Why not take off important files and re-install ? It's the only way to be sure...

[smargh]

what can I do to check/confirm that my systems are now clean?

The easiest & most reliable way is to restore from your backups. Or reinstall.

[kalniel]

Why not take off important files and re-install ? It's the only way to be sure...

Yup - it's easier to scan the few files that you want to keep (they'll be a known file type for example!) than to try and make sure you get around all the tricks malware uses to hide and reinfect systems.

[c12038]

Make a boot disk of AVG Free and a boot disk of Spybot, kills 99.9999% of all known germs.

Providing you make this on a none infected system

[Chadders87]

Avast have a good boot scanner too.

Run that, AVG Free, Spybot, Malware Bytes, and any others you find then install ONE only for ongoing protection.

Note that this still isnt garuanteed to work, and the only proven "works every time" solution is a clean install.

[itrush07]

if you have a good backup of all your important files then I suggest you reformat everything and reinstall back all your applications and data just to make sure you have a clean system to start with again..

[PitifulPyro]

You can also have a go with McAfee Stinger, I use McAfee (free with my broadband so please no hatin')
Google McAfee Stinger. It will be the first one.

[oldboy47]

Thanks all for your views which really confirmed my own thoughts (doubts).