Heal and Inoculate Your PC

Remember the excitement you felt when you bought your first car? Before the dealer even handed you the keys, you made a vow to keep your new set of wheels in tip-top shape, to lovingly wash it, change the oil every 3,000 miles, and even maintain the proper tire pressure. You wanted to keep your new car looking and running its very best. You understood that the consequence of not doing this would be costly repair bills at best, and at worst, a car that no longer ran as it should.

Owning and maintaining a PC really isn’t so different than owning a car. Only with a PC, there’s no maintenance schedule outlined in your user’s manual, leaving it up to you to keep your smoking-fast rig from turning into a stuttering compilation of unresponsive parts. And worse yet, now more than ever PCs are highly susceptible to all kinds of nasties, from keylogging viruses to performance-hampering spyware to everything in between. Even simply surfing the web can be enough to turn your dream machine into a nightmare experience if you don’t take proper precautions.

But fear not, because we’re going to show you how to set up safeguards to keep your rig humming along as fast as it was on the day you built it. Not only that, but we’ll also walk you through the steps of fixing a system that’s already suffering from neglect, so the next time you hear cries of frustration emanating from your neighbor’s apartment, you can swoop in and save the day, Maximum PC style!

Looking to clog up your browser and infect your system? Install toolbars and desktop buddies to do both in one fell swoop!

Heal Your PC

Sometimes a PC becomes so badly infected that nuking your Windows install and starting fresh seems like the only viable option. Or maybe your computer hasn’t yet reached a state of virtual undeath but has been running sluggishly, betraying the high-end components inside. No matter which scenario you find yourself in, there is hope. Put away that towel—we won’t be throwing it in quite yet.

Five-Minute Fixes

Whether your PC’s performance problems are severe or just mildly annoying, a simple series of fixes could have it running like new.

1: Blast the Bloatware

Just as the name implies, spyware is a malicious program designed to mine personal data from your machine and spy on your computing habits. The information collected is then used to harass you with ads in the form of pop-ups, redirected web searches, a browser homepage you can’t change, and other annoyances. And here’s the kicker: You could have installed the offending programs yourself! But don’t feel bad if you’ve been bamboozled; spyware often masks itself behind seemingly legitimate software, most often browser toolbars and desktop buddies. Rid your system of these bloated add-ons and watch your PC’s performance improve right away.

Close any open browser windows; then open up your Control Panel and navigate to Add or Remove Programs. Scroll down the list and uninstall any browser toolbar, desktop buddy, or search helper.

We love small critters, just not those of the virtual variety. Rid your system of deskmates and consider buying a real pet instead.

2: Get Widgety with It!

Now that you’ve uninstalled all the honest, easy-to-uninstall bloatware, it’s time to hit the local watering hole and call it a day, right? If only it were that easy! Once installed, some spyware detaches from the host program it shipped with, and other programs simply reinstall themselves, continuing to load every time you boot into Windows. To put the kibosh on these persistent pests, we’re going to tell Windows to skip over them when loading startup programs, and we’re going to do it with the help of Microsoft.

You'll want some programs to load with Windows, so choose only the items you want to rid from your system.

If you’re running Vista, you already own Windows Defender, and XP owners can download the free scanner from Microsoft here. Once installed, click the Tools tab and then select Software Explorer. This handy widget lists all the startup programs that load with Windows, along with a wealth of potentially incriminating information, such as the date a program installed, file location, file type, and whether or not it shipped with your OS. In the left-hand pane, highlight any dubious entries and click the Remove button. After you’ve cleared all of the startup scourge, reboot your system to a clean start!

3: Scan for Scoundrels

Windows Defender isn’t good at just customizing startup programs; it’s also a very capable spyware scanner. On the main screen, you can choose between a full scan, which looks in all files and currently running programs, or a quick search that uncovers vermin in their most common hiding spots. Run the full scan for a thorough scrub, and then let Defender remove any infections it finds.

4: Get a Second and Third) Opinion

New variants of spyware are released into the wild at an alarming rate, and it’s impossible for any single program to keep up with them all. For this reason, we run at least two different scanners on an infected system, or more if the infection is especially bad. Other programs we’ve had success with in the Maximum PC Lab include A-Squared (free, http://tinyurl.com/2gb93), Spybot S&D (free, www.safer-networking.org), Ad-Aware (free, www.lavasoftusa.com), AVG Anti-Spyware (free, http://free.grisoft.com), and Spy Sweeper ($30, www.webroot.com). Regardless of the tool you use, double-check the URL for typos and be sure you’re downloading directly from the source (rogue sites often try to pass off infected software as authentic spyware scanners). Above all else, always update your spyware definitions to detect the
latest threats.

5: Look Closer with HijackThis!

Spyware loves to hide, but HijackThis! makes an even better seeker, uncovering the leftover residue that managed to elude traditional scans.

Even after running several anti-spyware scans, you might still have a lingering infection. HijackThis! (free, http://tinyurl.com/huyrw) takes a fine-tooth comb to your system, targeting methods commonly used by hijackers. Because HijackThis! doesn’t zone in on specific infections, most of the reported entries will be legitimate, and disabling them could do more harm to your system than good. Highlight only entries that you’ve previously tried removing but that keep showing back up. For example, if you’ve uninstalled Bonzi Buddy and removed any related entries from the startup queue, you can safely highlight any references to the program that HijackThis! finds and then click the Fix Selected button. For all other selections, either leave them alone or carefully use the online tutorial (http://tinyurl.com/2et7nb) for detailed steps on discerning between good and bad entries. You can also submit your logs to Help2Go Detective (http://tinyurl.com/etujk) and HijackThis Security (www.hijackthis.de/en) for automated analysis.

6: Vaccinate Your Rig

When you’re sick, you generally make it a point to avoid others, lest you infect them with your ailment. But when your computer contracts a virus, it looks to spread the disease to as many other PCs as it can, turning each one into a remote-controlled zombie. The nefarious do-badder can then wage a DoS (Denial of Service) attack on a website, making thousands of PCs repeatedly request pages, until the site’s server can’t take the load and the site goes down.
But that’s not all viruses are capable of doing. They can record your keystrokes, including passwords and bank account information, and pass the information along to people who are up to no good. Other viruses wreak havoc on your hard drive, erasing data, altering critical system files, and even causing permanent physical damage in the form of bad sectors. Heck, viruses can even be used to install more spyware and viruses.

To rid your system of viruses, you need to perform a sweeping scan. If you don’t have antivirus software installed, we recommend you start with Panda Security’s web-based AV app (free, www.pandasecurity.com/usa) and scan your PC right from within Internet Explorer. It will also detect spyware, rootkits, and dialers, but will only disinfect viruses. Just click the Total Scan button, install the ActiveX control, and let Panda do the rest.

7: Perform a Root(kit) Canal

You’ve rid your system of spyware and nuked any lingering viruses, but your PC isn’t quite yet eligible for a clean bill of health. You need to check for rootkits, a particularly nasty variant of malware that burrows deep within the OS, where it’s difficult to detect with conventional scanners. Signs of infection can be subtle, or even nonexistent, thanks to a rootkit’s ability to integrate with your OS’s kernel. Whether your system displays symptoms or not, if you’ve recently discovered any spyware or viruses, your next step is to initiate a rootkit scan.

Because rootkits are tightly integrated with critical system files, back up any important data right away. Next, head over to F-Secure and download Blacklight (free for now; will be part of a $79 security suite, www.f-secure.com/blacklight). This handy executable needs no installation, just double-click the icon and watch as it probes your system. We also recommend running AVG’s Anti-Rootkit program (free, http://tinyurl.com/2mqb6n) for a second opinion.

Sidebar: Top Five Deadliest Viruses

Viruses have existed for decades and number in the thousands, but these five variants stand out as the nastiest of the bunch.

1. MyDoom One of the fastest-spreading worms of all time, MyDoom, and the variant MyDoom.B, set its sights on SCO and Microsoft, prompting both companies to offer a $250,000 bounty to anyone who identified the people responsible for its creation.

2. Nimda Just days after the September 11 attacks, PCs worldwide were hit by the Nimda virus, prompting speculation among conspiracy theorists that the virus was part of a terrorist attack. No link has ever been made between the two events.

3. CodeRed You’ve heard of the drink, but the CodeRed virus had a thirst for computers running Microsoft’s Internet Information Systems (IIS) web server, attaching the phrase “Hacked By Chinese” to websites. One of the targets included the White House.

4. Slammer Can a worm infect 75,000 PCs within minutes of going live? It can, and it did! Slammer’s small footprint (365 bytes) played a big role in its ability to double its infection rate every 8.5 seconds.

5. ILOVEYOU Love hurts, and in the case of the ILOVEYOU virus, it stung for over $5 billion in damages. Some of those scorned include Ford Motor Co., the Pentagon, and the British Parliament.