Ok, so your pc is running a bit slow, or you've got a load of popus or annoying software that you just CAN'T get rid of!

First off, do add/remove programs, it works for the really badly made spyware (yes its out there!)

Next, download the following..
All these are freeware besides Nod32 (30 day trial)

CCleaner
Nod32 Antivirus 30day Trial VERY good, i reccomend paying for -requires restart
CWShredder standalone exe
Lavasoft Adaware
Spybot S&D
Hijackthis standalone exe and Log analyser

Now turn OFF System Restore, it was usefull when it first was released, now it just stores spyware and viruses if your pc gets infected, and takes up hard drive space. Microsoft really should remove this and just keep the driver side of it, that works really well

Run the programs doing their updates (if they have them) in this order and follow my pictures



CCleaner

When installing it, you might want to untick "add Run and Open CCleaner to recycle bin context menu"
This is personal preference, i like to keep my context menu's clean.



If you click Options, Cookies you can choose which cookies to keep so you don't lose your passwords/preferences
It also has a registry cleaner in the 'Issues' part, easy to use, so do it

[i]if you want to make this your default windows Disk Cleanup tool download and run this regfile -saveas
http://bleddyn.co.uk/guides/spyware/ccleaner.reg

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Nod32 Antivirus

You'll be asked to restart after installing this, just click Restart Now.

When Windows comes back, do the following..



Click update and follow the screen on the right when it changes, the rest is simple.

Terminate any warnings you get, set the options to 'Clean' then 'Delete' if can't be cleaned

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CWshredder

Simple!



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Adaware

Straight forward really.. good to run once a week or so

After a scan, select all, Fix



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Spybot S&D

A bit more fiddly than adaware, but still like pie.. run just as often!

Open it, update it, close it, open it, Immunize, Scan, select all, Fix



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Hijackthis (never google it with spaces, only use the majorgeeks or merjin links)

Don't be clicker happy, this shows ALL startup dll's and programs



Copy the contents of the log file into this http://www.hijackthis.de/ its a VERY useful analyser that has a large ammount of blacklisted files

Remove the obviously bad ones, and maybe ask on this forum (or preferably google the remaining ones!). liutilities is good too, try googling "liutilities explorer.exe" and it gives you info about the process

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Reboot.

Still got problems?

Try Microsoft Antispyware, its free and works well, its throws a bit of a fit each time you change a system setting so i uninstall it after a scan..

If you've still got problems, then consider a format; nothing works better than that.

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Good ways of avoiding it in the first place? SpywareBlaster, more importantly, ditch Internet Explorer and use

Over and out!