Thursday, March 1, 2012

How to Remove a Trojan Virus Manually

ByGaurav Srivastava

The article describes how you can manually remove a Trojan virus from your computer. The methods described here are reliable and correct to date. We still advise you to follow them carefully to avoid facing problems. It is because virus removal is a sensitive procedure and requires thorough understanding of the virus infected files and their locations in the computer.

A Trojan virus is a dangerous program that masquerades as a legitimate program and thus bypasses your security program's reach. It mostly comes embedded into freeware like weather forecast software and tray clocks etc. considering that you need help removing the bad Trojan virus from your computer; we have compiled a free virus removal guide for you to remove it manually from your computer. However, online virus removal is recommended over the manual procedure for normal users.

Instructions:

Before you begin removing the Trojan virus from your computer, take a backup of your valuable data to a flash drive or CD etc. Instead of relying on external backup media that are equally susceptible to catastrophic damage, you can choose a cloud storage service to store your data. Once the data is backed up, open Task Manager by right clicking anywhere on the taskbar. Alternatively, you can press Alt, Ctrl, Delete keys together on the keyboard.

If you are unable to run any of these below mentioned steps in the normal mode, restart your computer in Safe Mode with Networking. When the computer start rebooting, repeatedly press the F8 key on the keyboard until you see the Windows boot menu. Use the Down arrow key to reach Safe Mode with Networking and then hit Enter. Make sure you immediately start tapping the F8 key before the Windows logo appears.

Disable System Restore. If it is Windows 7 or Vista, click on the Start menu and browse to Control Panel. Locate System and click on it. Click on System protection. Highlight the System Protection tab, select the disk drive viz. C or D etc., and then hit the Configure button. Select the Turn off system protection option, hit the Apply button, and then OK to exit the System Properties window. if you are using Windows XP, right click on My Computer and choose Properties. Highlight the System Restore tab and disable the system restore feature. Delete all the system restore points to avoid the Trojan virus from loading itself back on to your computer after it is restored.

In the Task Manager window, click on the Processes tab and look for the virus' processes. You will see weird names such as 124hies.exe, mslaugh.exe, and ghie4562.exe among others. Once you have spotted such process, click on it and then press the End Process button. It will stop the Trojan virus from running and consuming the CPU power. If the virus has got a specific name like blaster.worm or 32heur etc., you will find processes followed by such name extensions in addition to the weird names. Close Task Manager.

If the Trojan virus has disabled Task Manager due to which you are unable to kill malicious processes, check if you can launch your antivirus program or connect to the internet. If the antivirus program opens up, update it with latest virus definitions. Wait until updating finishes. When done, run a full virus scan (recommended) and not a custom one. When finished, check for the virus infected files and their locations into your computer. Write their full path in a Windows Notepad or on a piece of paper. Prompt the security program to delete them. If it is unable to delete the infected files, close it.

Click on the Start menu and browse to C: