1. Virus Identification

Before taking any action on your system, please read (and print) these instructions completely. There are sometimes special notes or warnings that might apply to your situation. Proceed at your own risk.

The first thing you need to do is find out if you are currently infected with a virus or not. If you already know you are, and if you know which virus is infecting your system, please skip ahead to Section 2. After that virus has been eliminated, please return here to Section 1 to check for other viruses on your system.

1. Make certain you have an antivirus program running on your computer.
   1. If your antivirus software is not kept current, several viruses and worms can disable or turn off your antivirus software. Look in the notification area of your toolbar (near the clock in the bottom right corner of your screen), and make sure that you see the icon for your antivirus software and that it indicates it is working.
   2. If you have never purchased antivirus software, power off your computer (to prevent further damage), contact Allogro (businesses only) or another service provider, or go to Best Buy, Costco, Fry’s Electronics, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Sam’s Club, Staples, Wal-Mart, a local computer store, or anywhere that sells a copy of Norton AntiVirus or Norton SystemWorks (the most current version available is best). Buy a copy and follow the instructions carefully for how to scan your computer from the CD-ROM. After you have cleaned any viruses the CD-ROM method has found, only then should you install the software on your computer.
   3. You can also buy and download a copy of the program directly from Symantec, but you won’t receive the CD-ROM to scan your system, and the download you purchase could become infected as you download it to your computer. If you purchase and download the program online (hopefully using a high speed broadband Internet connection), be sure to do so from a clean computer and burn a copy to CD-ROM from there.
2. Make sure your virus definitions are up to date.
   1. If you are running Norton/Symantec Antivirus, you need to connect to the Internet and run the LiveUpdate program that comes with the software. It will update your virus definitions and your software. You should do this at least once each week!
   2. Live Update can be scheduled to perform these updates automatically, whenever it is convenient for you. If you leave your computer on all the time, the middle of the night is usually a good choice. If you do it nightly, you greatly reduce the risk of virus damage to your system.
   3. If you are using different antivirus software, follow the instructions that came with the software for how to perform the updates. Again, this should be done weekly.
3. Run a complete system scan of your computer.
   1. This should include a scan of your computer’s memory, all of hard drives of your computer (you do not need to scan CD-ROMs or the A: floppy drive unless there is a disk in it), and, if it is an option, the boot sector of the hard drive. If you have the option to scan ALL FILES, take it; that is much more reliable than checking only executable programs.
   2. On a typical computer such a scan will generally take between 45 minutes and a couple of hours—depending upon the speed of your computer, the size of your hard drive, how many files and folders you have on it, and how many viruses it encounters as it scans.
   3. If real-time monitoring (often called “heuristic,” “bloodhound,” or some other equally fanciful name) of viruses is enabled in your antivirus software, you should only need to do a full scan about once a month or whenever you suspect you might be infected. Otherwise, you should run a full scan at least once each week.
   4. If Microsoft Exchange 2000 is installed on your system, do not scan the M: drive or you will lose your calendar data! This would be very unusual for a home computer, but we have to put in the warning just to be safe. Later versions of Exchange do not create an M: drive by default, but there are additional concerns; check Microsoft’s website or contact Allogro for more information.
4. If your scan comes up negative but you think you might still be infected OR if you would like a second opinion OR if you don’t have any virus scanning software on your computer (go get some!), you can use one of the free online scanners available from Symantec/Norton, Trend Micro, McAfee, BitDefender, or PandaSoftware.
5. Make note of the viruses that are encountered! You need to know which viruses and worms are infecting your system so you can use the correct removal tool to eliminate them. Usually your antivirus software will attempt to fix/clean the virus, and quarantine the file if it can not be fixed. This is only one step in the removal process—you still need to remove the virus completely with one of the tools listed in Section 2.

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