My machines full of malware. Should I just get a new computer?
Hi, everyone. Leo Notenboom here for askleo.com,
and I'm going to be honest and tell you that this is in part answer
and in part part rant on my part because this is one of my pet peeves.
Here's an example question. "I give up.
My computer has been infected with malware.
Lots of it, and I can't seem to get rid of it all.
I'm ready to throw in the towel.
Should I just get a new computer?
Wouldn't that just solve everything?"
Let me be Super Crystal clear.
You should never
need to buy a new computer because of a problem with your software. Specifically.
No, you should never need to buy a new computer because of malware.
That's just not necessary.
Here's the thing.
Your computer, of course, is a pile of hardware.
What's running on it?
Windows, the applications you have? That's all software.
That's all stuff that's recorded
on the hard disks or the SSDs or the whatever's in your machine.
Malware itself is just software.
Software can be erased.
Let me say that again,
everything on your machine can be erased without replacing the machine.
That means that, yes, you may need to erase everything.
Your operating system,
your installed applications, your data, that, of course, you've been backing up.
But in doing so, erasing everything also erases the malware.
What next?
You install the operating system from scratch.
The malware is not there.
You install your applications again from scratch.
The malware is still gone.
You restore your data.
Assuming that the data didn't contain the malware, the malware is still gone.
You didn't need to buy a new machine to do this.
You just needed to reinstall the operating system from scratch.
Yes, buying a new machine solves
the problem, but it solves the problem because it's doing essentially the same
thing that we just did by erasing everything.
When you get a new machine,
you've got a new hard disk, it's got a fresh copy of the operating system.
You install your applications from scratch,
they don't bring the malware, you restore your data,
assuming it didn't carry the malware, it doesn't have the malware.
The malware is not there.
It's the same thing.
Except you just spent a lot of money to do it.
You didn't have to spend that money to do it.
Erasing the hard disk.
Reinstalling Windows from scratch is
the way to remove malware without replacing your machine.
You can clean your computer.
Now, I hear from a lot of people that I've been cleaning my computer.
I've been running scans.
I've been running disk cleanups. I've been doing this.
I've been doing that. You know what you probably have.
And for a lot of malware, that's great. Security software is awesome.
It can remove a tremendous amount of malware.
There is no security software.
Heck, there is no tool that will remove absolutely every piece of malware.
Malware can be really, really sticky.
The one thing that will absolutely remove malware from the machine you have without
getting rid of the machine is to erase the hard disk is to reformat the machine
is to erase everything and then replace it with fresh copies.
I call it the nuclear option because, yes, it's a fair amount of work, right?
It does involve reinstalling the operating
system, reinstalling your applications, restoring your data.
But it doesn't involve getting you hardware.
I got to say, prevention is best.
For example, you should never really find yourself in this situation.
Why?
Because you're backing up, right?
You're doing image backups.
You're backing up your entire machine, probably on a daily basis.
So the best way to get rid of the malware
again without buying a new machine is simply to restore your machine to an image
backup taken prior to the malware's arrival.
Poof, it's gone and all of your software is still there.
All of the data is still there, at least as of the time of that backup.
Again, it didn't involve the nuclear
option, and it didn't involve getting a new machine.
It just involved restoring a backup image.
And of course, prevention.
True prevention is best.
Don't let the malware on your machine in the first place.
I realized that that is somewhat
idealistic.
Not everybody can do that, but honestly,
that's where the efforts should be focused.
Now, I have to be honest, right?
I have to be to allow for at least one exception to this rule.
Maybe you were looking for an excuse.
Maybe this is a straw that broke the camel's back, right?
You've got a lot of other things.
You were thinking about a new machine,
and this is kind of what pushed you over the edge.
You know what?
If you wanted a new machine, get a new machine.
That's fine.
That's perfect.
But don't do it only because of malware.
If you have other reasons for wanting
a new machine for wanting to replace the machine you're looking at.
And malware is what pushes you over the edge.
Fine. But if it's the only reason,
if malware is the only reason that you're considering replacing your machine, stop,
take a breath and look into at least erasing the operating system.
Reinstalling windows from scratch,
reinstalling your applications, reinstalling your data.
That's another way and generally a cheaper
way to get rid of malware again without replacing the machine.
For updates.
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askleo.com/17067 I'm Leo Notenboom, this is
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