Malware and Hard drive

[MalaNoche]

It is hightime I cleaned my hard drive. But I do not know how to go about it. I understand that I can try rebooting it to it's factory settings, but I wonder if that would wipe out all of my Microsoft programs and Steam games.

 

[xroe]

It will delete everything other then your operating system. This includes games, settings, pictures and everything that was not on the computer when it was purchased.

 

[leo2kp]

Are you saying that you DO have malware? Also, do you mean a reinstall of Windows vs. restarting your computer (reboot)?

If you have the disks for your Microsoft programs (Office, I am assuming) and a Windows installation DVD, you can always re-download your Steam games. If you have malware, I would reinstall Windows just to be safe. But make sure to back up your documents to an external drive, and have the latest drivers ready to go for after the installation because your network adapter probably won't work until you install the driver manually, and do all of the Windows Updates.

 

[MalaNoche]

Are you saying that you DO have malware? Also, do you mean a reinstall of Windows vs. restarting your computer (reboot)?

If you have the disks for your Microsoft programs (Office, I am assuming) and a Windows installation DVD, you can always re-download your Steam games. If you have malware, I would reinstall Windows just to be safe. But make sure to back up your documents to an external drive, and have the latest drivers ready to go for after the installation because your network adapter probably won't work until you install the driver manually, and do all of the Windows Updates.

Well it might be. I have Spotify and other programs running so that might be it. But another Administrator account on my PC has weatherbug and that is getting annoying.

 

[xroe]

If you are unsure then I would recommend downloading an antivirus program if you don't already have one and run a malware scan (if you do not have an antivirus program I recommend AVG free edition as the name says it all.) If malware doesn't't show up then I or maybe leo can walk you though some pc optimization steps if you would like.

 

[ThatGeekloner]

http://www.malwarebytes.org/
Helps a lot. Known to be the best anti malware software on the net.