By clicking on the start button in the bottom left of your screen, then clicking on run and typing in “msconfig” you will be presented with a menu that has several different tabs on the top. If you click on Startup you will be presented with a list of the items that startup with your computer. The ones with a check mark next to them are actually the only ones running when your computer starts up. Now comes the tricky part, deciding which ones are needed and which ones aren’t. You will find that many are needed such as your antivirus, firewall, possibly your mouse and other hardware that you may have attached to your computer. You may find several that are not needed and some that are potentially dangerous. I do not advise that you use guesswork in this area. Many times I find myself going to google.com for the answer. Simply go to www.google.com and type in the unknown item name. Usually you find many good answers. If it is a legitimate file leave it alone. At times I have found a checkmark and next to it is a blank line. If the item is not identified it is a sure sign of something evil lurking, uncheck it. Another way to find out what is going on is to push Alt+Ctrl+Del at the same time. Your Task Manager will come up showing you what is currently running. Click on the Process tab and you will see lots of things running. Don’t be alarmed, there is naturally a lot going on in the background that you are unaware of. However some of it might not be so good. Again picking these processes apart good from bad is not an easy task. I recommend that you go to a site like http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/ where they have an exhaustive list explaining many process. Once you identify a bad one simply click on End Task. I do this a lot because if a malicious process is running it is hard if not impossible for an antispyware program to effectively get rid of it. Once you’ve ended the task your antispyware application should be ready to finish the off the malware.

Symptom #2: You can’t get to the website you want to or your home page keeps changing. You’ve been hijacked. Browser hijacking is a common form of malware. While not critical to computers operation it can be very frustrating and annoying. To resolve this issue you will need the help of an antispyware application. As I may have mentioned before no one antispyware application is top dog. There is an application that is specifically designed to remedy problems like browser hijackers but it does take some knowledge of computers. The application is called Hijack This. It is a free download from http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html. The program will show you items that run from your registry, Internet Explorer and other areas. This application isn’t to be run by the faint of heart. There are several forums that you can post Hijack This logs to and experienced users will advise you as to what items should be checked to remove. That said there are a few antispyware applications that can also remove browser hijackers.

Two that I have had good experiences with are Spysweeper by webroot - http://www.webroot.com/ and CounterSpy by sunbelt software - http://www.sunbelt-software.com/. I have found both to be able to rid computers of browser hijackers.

Be leery of a program that you have not installed popping up and telling you that you are infected with malware. Most likely the application will tell you that it has found malware on your system and offer to remove it after you purchase it. Many of these programs are rouge software simply out for your money. There is an huge list that goes into detail about such programs at http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm