How to Fix an HP Computer After a Virus
Viruses are malicious programs that find their way into computers and cause damage. They change the way your computer works, change settings on programs and multiply to do more damage. Some viruses will get into your email and send themselves as attachments to all of your email contacts, thus possibly infecting their computers. If you let a virus get too far into infecting your system files, it could be a big headache trying to figure out how to reverse its affects.
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Instructions
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Identify the problem. There are many symptoms that a computer could show when it has a virus. It could take an abnormally long time to boot from startup, programs could run differently and it may show multiple system error messages. Also, when using your browser, you may get bombarded with pop-up windows or automatically taken to different websites without even touching a button.
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Disconnect your network. After suspecting that you may have a virus, disconnect your computer from accessing any other computers on your network. This is important because the computers on your network are all connected and can access files and information from one another. It is possible for the virus to travel from the infected computer to any or all uninfected computers connected through the network.
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Back up your files. Before the virus gets worse or you try to do anything to kill the virus, back up any files that may be important. Any office files, such as business or financial spreadsheets or data files that have irreplaceable information, should be backed up immediately. You can do this by burning them to a disk for later use, or you can use a flash drive or an external hard drive. Do this for anything that would be difficult or impossible to replace. This is just as a precaution. You may not even need to add these back on later.
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Use an anti-virus program. There are a few ways to fix a virus, depending on the complexity of the virus and the software that is available to you. There are times that a new virus has been picked up and there is not much information available to fix it. The first thing would be to run a full system scan using your anti-virus software. If you do not have the software on your computer, you can download a free version online for home use. You can access the link at the bottom of this article. Running the full system scan instead of the quick scan will allow the anti-virus to search through your registry files on your computer. This is where most viruses infect and multiply first. After scanning the full system, the software may ask you to restart your computer. After your computer has restarted, run the full system scan a second time. This will help you make sure that if a virus was found, it was successfully removed.
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