Some EBC owners have mentioned that they spend a lot of money on virus removal.

Here are some techniques that you can try first to remove the virus yourself. KITE takes no responsibility for any negative effects that occur if you try to use these steps and there is a negative result. Depending on your data plans, you may find that downloading some of these tools becomes more expensive than hiring someone to remove the viruses. So use your common sense and if something is taking a very long time to load don t complete that step. Let me know if anything that I have written, or something in one of the resources, does not make sense or needs more information post your problem as a discussion topic!
1. If you have an antivirus software, install its latest updates and most recent virus definitions. 2. If you do not already have an antivirus software, download AVG Free. Follow these instructions: y Go to http://free.avg.com/ww-en/homepage. At the top of the page is an advertisment for New
AVG anti-virus free 2011. Click the orange Download Now button and follow their instructions.

3. Scan your computer for viruses with stronger settings (yes, it sounds trivial, but sometimes it s all that s needed). y Open your antivirus and click into its settings. Change your settings to that the virus software will scan as much as possible this might mean changing your excluded files settings to that no files are excluded from the scan, or enabling Advanced heuristics or scanning of Potentially unsafe applications . Then click Scan. If it finds anything, quarantine them. 4. If it found something, restart the computer and check if your virus is gone. If your virus is gone, go to step 18. Otherwise, continue to the next step.

5. Do a system restore1 to a few days before you remember the problem . Note that this may cause programs that you installed since the system restore to not work!! Following these instructions: y Go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306084. y Under the More Information section, there is a heading titled How to use System
Restore to restore Windows XP to a previous state. Below it is a link stating Click here to view or hide step-by-step instructions with pictures.
y

Click the link to reveal a set of instructions including screenshots. Follow those instructions, doing a system restore to a few days before you noticed any problems with the computer.

6. Restart the computer and check if your virus is gone. If it is still present, you can try doing a system restore to further back in the past (repeat step 5), or you can continue to the next step. If the virus is gone, go to step 18. If you find that programs that you installed no longer work, remove them by going to Start->Control Panel-> Add or remove programs and then reinstall them.

Microsoft saves copies of some parts of your computer as system restore points. If something messes up your computer like an update or a virus, then going back to the older version of your computer can sometimes fix it.

7. Turn off system restore. Follow these instructions: y Go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310405. Click on the tab titled How to turn on or off system restore to show the instructions. Follow them. 8. Disable All Startup Keys2. Follow these instructions: y Click into the Start menu and click Run. In the box that pops up, type msconfig without the quotations. You should see a System Configuration Utility pop up. Go to the Startup tab, and click the button that says Disable All . Click OK . 9. Restart your computer in safe mode3. Follow these instructions: y Begin to restart your computer. While the computer is booting up, press F8 . This will cause you to be in safe mode. 10. Run your antivirus again. Quarantine anything that it finds. 11. Restart the computer and check if your virus is gone. If it is, go to step 17. Otherwise, go to the next step. 12. Download McAfee stinger. Repeat step 9, but this time run McAfee stinger instead of your antivirus. y Go to this site and follow the instructions provided to get McAfee stinger: http://www.mcafee.com/us/downloads/free-tools/stinger.aspx. 13. Download Microsoft Safety Scanner. Then repeat step 9, but this time run Microsoft Safety Scanner instead of your antivirus. y Go to this site to get Microsoft Safety Scanner: http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/enus/default.aspx 14. Download Kapersky Virus Removal tool. Then repeat step 9, but this time run Kapersky removal tool. y Go to http://www.kaspersky.com/antivirus-removal-tool-register. Enter a name and email address, and make sure that the check box Yes, I want to receive free email updates... is not checked. Click submit form and follow the instructions. 15. Steps 12-14 may have identified the virus on your computer but not removed it. If so, google the name of the virus and look for resources that are designed to remove this virus from your computer. Try as many as you can until one of them removes it.

Startup keys determine which programs run when you start up your computer. Viruses sometimes add themselves to this list, which is why we disable the entire list. 3 Restarting in Safe mode means starting up the computer with most of its features disabled. This can sometimes disable the virus as well so that it cannot prevent its own removal.

16. Give up and hire somebody to remove the virus from your computer. 17. Then re-enable your startup keys by going start->run-> msconfig . Click the Startup tab and check all the check boxes. 18. Make a new system restore point by following the instructions here: y Go to this site: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/enus/app_system_restore_hss_understand.mspx?mfr=true and follow the instructions.

19. Delete all your system restore points but the most recent one (since some of them will having the virus in them) by following the instructions here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555367. 20. If you don t already have an antivirus software, get one! I recommend Microsoft Security Essentials for keeping your computer clean over the long term (it has been recommended by my professor and my most computer savy friends, and is the one that I use myself and I have never had any problems with it). Download it here (http://www.microsoft.com/enus/security_essentials/default.aspx) and then remove AVGfree from your computer by clicking Start>Control Panel-> Add or Remove programs and locating AVGfree and clicking uninstall. 21. Add an anti-spyware product to your computer if you don t already have one. I reccommend Spybot search and destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html) for free sofware, but if you are willing to pay then Webroot Spysweeper (http://www.webroot.com/En_US/index.html) is considered to be the best.