nedd advise on what to do.

[nitro498]

I had a co-worker ask me to try to clean her computer. This thing has been running for at least 6 months without virus protection. There's so much spyware,adware, ect., that you cannot access the internet. Most of the time, the blue screen of death will appear if you try to access or remove a program. I have tried booting to safe mode and cleaning but it didnt help much. Is there an app that I can boot from that will fix this computer. This is a last-ditch effort before I reformat the drive.

 

[fiksi]

Originally posted by: nitro498
I had a co-worker ask me to try to clean her computer. This thing has been running for at least 6 months without virus protection. There's so much spyware,adware, ect., that you cannot access the internet. Most of the time, the blue screen of death will appear if you try to access or remove a program. I have tried booting to safe mode and cleaning but it didnt help much. Is there an app that I can boot from that will fix this computer. This is a last-ditch effort before I reformat the drive.

Well, i will tell you from my personal experience... sometimes, it is worth trying to clean a computer, but sometimes- as your case may be, you are better off just reinstalling windows(it gives you an option to delete win folder, which is what i did).
I remember when i tried to clean my friend's laptop- it was impossible. There were gazillions of viruses, spyware, and i spent few hours trying to clean it. No success no matter what program i used. There was always something. So i guess it may be better to nuke it...

 

[DigitalCancer]

yea, just do a repair install, unless of course the virii's are SOO bad that they're in the programs as well, in which case i'd do a full format of the system.

 

[Lemon law]

I bought a used computer that was really infested---over 4000 pieces of malware----but your friend's sounds much worse.

I finally got my computer clean---getting rid of 98% was easy--but getting the last 2% off took almost forever. Just time wise, you are probably better off nuking the drive
and doing a clean install.

Then do the other half of the job--get your friend set up with computer security---the consolidated security thread in the software section here is a good place to start.
And if your co worker is doing p2p stuff, thats a huge risk there.

 

[nitro498]

I went ahead and reloaded windows. The first time- the drive would not format. I had to delete the partition. After that- everything went smooth.

 

[gamepad]

You did the right thing.