Tricks for removing infection from PC

What to Do If Your Computer Is Infected

Sometimes even an experienced user will not realise that a computer is infected with a virus. This is because viruses can hide among regular files, or camoflage themselves as standard files. This section contains a detailed discussion of the symptoms of virus infection, how to recover data after a virus attack and how to prevent data from being corrupted by malware.

Symptoms of infection

There are a number of symptoms which indicate that your computer has been infected. If you notice "strange things" happening to your computer, namely:

• unexpected messages or images are suddenly displayed
• unusual sounds or music played at random
• your CD-ROM drive mysteriously opens and closes
• programs suddenly start on your computer
• you receive notification from your firewall that some applications have attempted to connect to the Internet, although you did not initiate this, then it is very likely that your computer has been infected by a virus

Additionally, there are some typical symptoms which indicate that your computer has been infected via email:

• your friends mention that they have received messages from your address which you know you did not send
• your mailbox contains a lot of messages without a sender's e-mail address or message header

These problems, however, may not be caused by viruses. For example, infected messages that are supposedly coming from your address can actually be sent from a different computer.

There is a range of secondary symptoms which indicate that your computer may be infected:

• your computer freezes frequently or encounters errors
• your computer slows down when programs are started
• the operating system is unable to load
• files and folders have been deleted or their content has changed
• your hard drive is accessed too often (the light on your main unit flashes rapidly)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer freezes or functions erratically e.g. you cannot close the application window

90% of the time the symptoms listed above indicate a hardware or software problem. Although such symptoms are unlikely to be caused by a virus, you should use your antivirus software to scan your computer fully.

What you should do if you notice symptoms of infection

If you notice that your computer is functioning erratically

1. Don't panic! This golden rule may prevent the loss of important data stored in your computer and help you avoid unnecessary stress.
2. Disconnect your computer from the Internet.
3. If your computer is connected to a Local Area Network, disconnect it.
4. If the computer cannot boot from the hard drive (error at startup), try to start the system in Safe Mode or from the Windows boot disk
5. Before taking any action, back up all critical data to an external drive (a floppy disk, CD, flash memory, etc.).
6. Install antivirus software if you do not have it installed.
7. Download the latest updates for your antivirus database. If possible, do not use the infected computer to download updates, but use a friend's computer, or a computer at your office, an Internet cafe, etc. This is important because if you are connected to the Internet, a virus can send important information to third parties or may try to send itself to all email addresses in your address book. You may also be able to obtain updates for your antivirus software on CD-ROM from the software vendors or authorized dealers.
8. Perform a full system scan.

If no viruses are found during a scan

If no viruses are found during the scan and the symptoms that alarmed you are classifed, you probably have no reason to worry. Check all hardware and software installed in your computer. Download Windows patches using Windows Update. Deinstall all unlicensed software from your computer and clean your hard drives of any junk files.

If viruses are found during a scan

A good antivirus solution will notify you if viruses are found during a scan, and offer several options for dealing with infected objects.

In the vast majority of cases, personal computers are infected by worms, Trojan programs, or viruses. In most cases, lost data can be successfully recovered.

1. A good antivirus solution will provide the option to disinfect for infected objects, quarantine possibly infected objects and delete worms and Trojans. A report will provide the names of the malicious software discovered on your computer.
2. In some cases, you may need a special utility to recover data that have been corrupted. Visit your antivirus software vendor's site, and search for information about the virus, Trojan or worm which has infected your computer. Download any special utilities if these are available.
3. If your computer has been infected by viruses that exploit Microsoft Outlook Express vulnerabilities, you can fully clean your computer by disinfecting all infected objects, and then scanning and disinfecting the mail client's databases. This ensures that the malicious programs cannot be reactivated when messages which were infected prior to scanning are re-opened. You should also download and install security patches for Microsoft Outlook Express.
4. Unfortunately, some viruses cannot be removed from infected objects. Some of these viruses may corrupt information on your computer when infecting, and it may not be possible to restore this information. If a virus cannot be removed from a file, the file should be deleted.

If your computer has suffered a severe virus attack

Some viruses and Trojans can cause severe damage to your computer:

1. If you cannot boot from your hard drive (error at startup), try to boot from the Windows rescue disk. If the system can not recognize your hard drive, the virus has damaged the disk partition table. In this case, try to recover the partition table using scandisk, a standard Windows program. If this does not help, contact a computer data recovery service. Your computer vendor should be able to provide contact details for such services.

If you have a disk management utility installed, some of your logical drives may be unavailable when you boot from the rescue disk. In this case, you should disinfect all accessible drives, reboot from the system hard drive and disinfect the remaining logical drives.

2. Recover corrupted files and applications using backup copies after you have scanned the drive containing this data.

Diagnosing the problem using standard Windows tools

Although this is not recommended unless you are an experience user, you may wish to:

• check the integrity of the file system on your hard drive (using CHKDSK program) and repair file system errors. If there are a large number of errors, you must backup the most important files to removable storage media before fixing the errors
• scan your computer after booting from the Windows rescue disk
• use other standard Windows tools, for example, the scandisk utility

Solution to fix the USB Drive not recognized problem

USBs have surely made our lives simpler and convenient. We like plugging our pen drives, flash drives and other external devices in USB ports but there is a strange problem that happens sometimes that when we insert our USB drive into the USB port we get an error message saying “USB Drive Not Recognized”.

The error message reads “One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it. For assistance in solving this problem, click this message”. If we open the My Computer we will notice that even our drive has not been detected.

The first thing that will come to our mind is that we should try uninstall and then reinstall the USB drivers but here is the simpler solution and yes no need to edit the registry or try something in the Device Manager.

Solution for the problem:

1.    The solution is just to “Turn off the computer and unplug it from the power supply” (Unplugging is necessary as today even after turning the system off, the motherboard continues to get power).

2.    Let the system remain off for about a minute.

3.    Restart the system and wait for it to boot completely before inserting the drive again again.

That’s it the problem will not appear again.

Useful tip to Hide drives and Partitions

You can hide your system partitions or drives from other users. This tip is very useful if different type of users are using same computer then you can safe your important drives with this trick from any illegal action. You can use windows XP TweakUI utility or registry editor to hide drives. To work with windows XP TweakUI go to Run and type tweakui then press enter. A small TweakUI interface will open with options to uncheck drives that you want hidden. Click OK to finish it.

You can also use registry editor to edit the computer registry to turn off the display of drives, but be careful to work with computer registry.

Follow the given steps to hide computer drives:

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First click on Start button then type Regedit in Run option.
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Here locate the location to:

HKey_Current_User \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows

\ Current Version \ Policies \ Explorer

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Here right click on right side of Registry editor panel and add new DWORD then put its value 3FFFFFF.
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Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

Fix the problem of USB Pen Drive not getting detected

Some of our viewers wanted to know how they can solve the problem of USB Drives likePen Drives not getting detected in the computer. This is a common problem nowadays and is a nuisance in case of need.

This problem can be of two types as listed below, so just figure it out and apply the correct fix:

Problem 1: Pen Drive does not get detected at all.

Problem 2: Pen Drive gets detected but doesn’t show up in the My Computer.

Let’s see the possible solutions to these problems:

Fix to Problem 1:

•    First of all check if the pen drive is working all fine by plugging it in some other PC. If it works well there then it means that the drive is not faulty.
•    Then run “devmgmt.msc” in cmd and click on the plus sign before “Universal Serial Bus Controllers” and update the drivers by uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers.
•    But if the Pen Drive comes up faulty then just get it replaced.

Fix to Problem 2:

This problem is caused when Windows fails to assign a new drive letter to the Portable Drive inserted for the first time.

•    Open Run, type “compmgmt.msc” and hit enter.
•    Now click “Disk Management” on the let side.
•    On the right side, right click on your USB Drive that appears in the disk management window and click change drive letter and paths.
•    Assign a new drive letter to the USB Drive which is not assigned to any other drive.
•    Now the Pen Drive will get displayed in My Computer.

This fix can also useful for people who just wish to change the drive letter of their USB Drive.

Tips to recover scratched CD's

1. Spread a cloth on a flat surface and place the CD on it.
2. Then, hold the disc with one hand, use the other to wipe the polish into the affected area with a soft cloth.
3. Wait for it to dry and buff using short, brisk strokes along the scratch, not across it.
4. A cloth sold to wipe spectacles or camera lenses will work super m8's.
5. When you can no longersee the scratch,, wash the disc with water and let it dry before playing. Intersting isnt it? Try it right now
I have used toothpaste with good effects before Ive also used car paint cutting compound on deeper scratches. It does leave lots of smaller scratches (as it is a cutting compound after all) but it will remove the worst scratches in most cases.
ya u r gng to b surely befinited by this Operation


* Fingermarks/prints cause 43% of disc problems!
* General wear & tear causes 25% of disc problems!
* Player-related issues cause 15% of disc problems!
* Remaining Others

Add Your Name (or) Application to right click Of My Computer

To write your name on right click application

please follow the steps.

1.Copy/Paste the following code in Notepad And then Save it as .reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Registry Editor]
@="Your Name Or Name of the Application"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Registry Editor\command]
@="Location Of The Application"

2.Now edit it and then Type your name In

Eg:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Registry Editor]
@="VAIBHAV"

3. If u want to get any application, once you click Your name or name of application
Then , Type the location Of the application Which u want to open In:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Registry Editor\command]
@="Location Of The Application"

For eg.C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\messenger.exe
Thats It finally save it And then Run it .

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To add Application Control Panel

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Control Panel\command]
@="rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL"

To add Application Add/Remove

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\Add/Remove\command]
@="control appwiz.cpl"

To add Application Reboot

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\[Reboot]\command]
@="shutdown -r -f -t 5"

To add Application Shutdown

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\[Shutdown]\command]
@="shutdown -s -f -t 5"

Steps to Reduce Counter Strike Latency or Ping

One of the most popular online games Counter Strike or CS also has some problems related to it. Almost one out of two people playing this game is troubled by the problem of facing a high ping or uneven latency. The high latency makes thegame lag so badly that it becomes very difficult to play. In spite of having good configuration of the PC and a high speed internet connection the gamers come across this strange problem. This is a major problem of CS players around the world and of one of our readers. The reasons for this problem can differ person to person and there is no fix solution to the problem but I have listed here various solutions that may solve your problem. Steps to try: 1.    Since there is no definite solution to the problem, the first and the foremost thing you should do is to change your ISP. Yes, it happens that if you are getting high latency/ping in the game, changing the Internet Service Provider will solve your problem. 2.    Though it would be difficult to know, but having the same ISP as of the server will greatly reduce the ping while playing the game. 3.    Do delete all the temporary stuffs of the system like caches, temporary files to free up the system’s resources. To perform the disk cleanup, right click on the drive and click on Properties, then click on Disk Cleanup button below. 4.    If you are facing uneven (quite high latency one moment and quite low the other) then it is sure a virus/spyware infection. Run a good updated Anti Virus scan to clean the system. 5.    Strange but true, Hardware used for playing also plays an important role in reducing the ping. 6.    It would be better if you run least number of programs in the background so that the game can utilize all the bandwidth of the internet solely. 7.    CFGs used in the game are also important while reducing the ping. Usually servers have their own CFGs but it is an important factor. 8.    Then there are various server and client rates like cl_cmdrate andcl_updaterate. Generally the lower values of these rates are preferred but these are different for different systems. Default values are cl_cmdrate 101 and cl_updaterate 101. So how many of you found the above info helpful?