The average computer user is aware of anti-virus and anti-spyware programs, but do they really work at removing your infection?  In my experience, they do not work, at least not 100% of the time or even close to that.

If you ask any experienced and competent IT professional what to do about an infected system, they should only give you one answer: format your hard drive and reinstall your operating system.  Why skip straight to the format/reinstall and disregard the anti-virus and anti-spyware removal tools?

1. Formatting and reinstalling your operating is the only 100% guaranteed way of removing an infection.  Formatting your hard drive will, for all intents and purposes, remove all data from your hard drive, including any malicious code.  Anti-virus and anti-spyware applications can almost never find and remediate every single infection (that is why you may have heard to use multiple anti-spyware scanning tools).
2. Virus and spyware removal can take many, many hours to complete.  First you have to scan your computer, then you must remove the infections.  If  you’re using multiple anti-spyware applications, you will have to scan and remediate with each piece of software.  The usual run time is about 1-2 hours depending on the speed of your computer and the size of your hard drive.  Add in multiple scans and you can easily see how this can take up lots of time.
3. Formatting your hard drive and reinstalling your OS does not take as much time as you think it would.  An average format/reinstall should be about 2 hours on the high end.  This is probably less time than it would take you to run your anti-virus and anti-spyware programs.
4. In my experience, use of spyware and virus removal tools can lead to no results, unexpected results, or even a completely unusable computer.  Say you have an infection on your computer and you run an anti-spyware application.  The program may not completely remove the infection, leaving it to populate on the next reboot.  Even worse, the scan can trigger some malicious code and leave the computer completely unusable (e.g. locks up at the log on screen, wipes entire hard drive and partition tables).  Because of these headaches and uncertainty, it is best to just skip ahead and do a format/reinstall.
5. Computer security is proactive, not reactive.  The point of anti-spyware and anti-virus programs is to keep malicious software off of your computer, not to remove the infection once it starts.  It is much easier to identify malicious software and keep it off of your computer than it is to remove the infection.  Everybody’s computer is different and there is no way to accurately provide remediation options for every single piece of malicious software.  Look at it in terms of probabilities.  While there may be a 50/50 chance that your anti-spyware/anti-virus program will remove the infection, there’s a definite 100% chance of removing the infection by formatting your hard drive and reinstalling your operating system.

To sum it up, there is no guarantee that anti-spyware and anti-virus programs will remove an infection.  The only guaranteed infection removal method is to format your hard drive and reinstall your operating system.  Formatting your hard drive will remove all data from your hard drive, including any malicious software you may have acquired.  On top of that, a format and reinstall usually takes less time, and can save you the headache of running a full fledged scan with multiple pieces of software.

In the past decade, firewall, anti-virus, and anti-spyware companies ramped up their marketing and made the dangers of the internet known to the public.  Their marketing, along with a large portion of the media, made it seem like firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware programs are mandatory and that no computer will ever be safe without them.

If you’re an above average user, the truth is, you don’t really need any of the three.  Of course, there’s a catch: you must be aware of your actions.  Computers do not get infected on their own, it is usually the fault of the user.  Clicking on an unknown link, opening email attachments from someone you don’t know, and downloading files (hint hint: warez and keygens) via P2P (peer to peer) file sharing programs are all very common examples of how an infection starts.

My point is: Be smart about what you do.  Use common sense! If you don’t know where a file came from, don’t open it.  If you don’t know where a link points to, don’t click on it.  In other words, if in doubt, don’t do it!  By practicing safe computer usage habits, you leave yourself less vulnerable to spyware and viruses.

One thing I hate about anti-virus and anti-spyware programs are their “Real-Time” scanners which scan files and processes as they execute in real-time.  This can cause considerable lag depending on your system configuration.  Even on a high-end system, I can still notice the slow down caused by real-time scanning.  Because of that, I disable the real-time scanning feature with every anti-virus program I come across.  Doing so speeds up the PC slightly and you can always manually scan a file if you think it may contain malicious code.

In my opinion, the days of spyware ended as soon as Mozilla Firefox was released.  Before then, I used Internet Explorer 6 and I always found myself with some sort of adware.  Back in those days, I’ll admit I wasn’t as smart as I should have been, but the end result was still unacceptable.  As soon as I switched to Mozilla Firefox, I never had spyware problems again.  From that day forward, combined with good browsing habits, I never had a need to install anti-spyware programs onto my PC.

Firewalls are another story that make me laugh.  More than likely, you’ve probably seen a company which claimed your computer isn’t safe from hackers unless you have their firewall product.  First off, ask yourself this, “Why would any hacker waste time in trying to hack into my computer?” Most, if not all, self respecting hackers target corporations and organizations for some sort of gain.  Will hackers really gain anything by gaining access to pictures you took last summer?  Why would anybody target you in the first place? More than likely, the average user will not need a firewall to keep him/herself safe.  If you have a router (which lots of us do), you probably have a hardware firewall built into the router, thus, you do not need a software firewall product.  Second, if you’re running Windows XP or later, you already have a software firewall.  The Windows Firewall may not be as flexible as a mainstream firewall company’s product, but it works the same way by keeping unneeded ports closed.

I, personally, do not like anything other than a hardware firewall.  Having a software firewall causes too many interruptions because there’s always a pop-up notification asking you to block or unblock a program from reaching the internet and such.  On the other hand, a hardware firewall is configured once and stays that way until you manually need to make a change.  A typical user will not have to mess around with hardware firewall settings because the router is usually smart enough to recognize the traffic and route it appropriately.

I’m not trying to say that all firewall, anti-virus, and anti-spyware products are worthless.  I’m really trying to say that good browsing habits along with some common sense can mitigate 99% of all your risks regarding the latter.  Being aware is your number one defense against malicious code.

Remote Desktop is a great feature of Windows which lets you remotely control your desktop from a remote location.  Many IT professionals and users utilize this free feature in Windows 2000/XP/Vista.  Remote desktop is a huge time saver because you do not have to physically be at the computer workstation to control the computer.  Basically, this post will go over how to enable Remote Desktop as well as how to use DynDNS.com’s services to automatically update a chosen host name with the remote PC’s IP address.  The end result: you’ll never have to remember the IP address again.

Enabling Remote Desktop on a Windows PC is fairly straightforward.

For Windows 2000/XP:

1. Right click on “My Computer” and choose “Properties”
2. Go to the “Remote” tab
3. Check the box that says “Allow users to connect remotely to this computer”
4. Click “OK” at the bottom of the window.

For Windows Vista:

1. Right click on “My Computer” and choose “Properties”
2. Click on “Remote settings” in the left “Tasks” menu
3. Choose the radio button which says “Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop (less secure)”
4. Click “OK” at the bottom of the window.

The last step is to figure out what IP address the remote PC has.  If you’re connected directly to your modem and not using a router, you can view your IP address by going to http://www.whatismyip.com.  If you have a router, you will have to log in to your router to view the IP address.  You will also have to forward port 3389 to the PC you wish to remotely connect to.  Since there are many, many routers out there, you will have to consult your router’s manual or website for instructions on how to do the latter.

To connect to your remote PC, you will need to use the Remote Desktop Connection program.  This is typically found in Start -> Programs -> Accessories.  Once the program has opened, enter in the IP address of the remote PC which was described in the paragraph above.  Click on “Connect” and it should connect you to your remote desktop enabled PC.  If it asks you for a user name and password, use the credentials you usually use when you log on to your PC.

However, the problem that most residential users run into is with their dynamic IP address.  Most residential internet connections are assigned a dynamic IP address which can change over time.  This means that everytime your IP address changes, you will have to use that new IP address to access your remote computer.

Why is that bad?  Well, if you have your old IP address and are unaware of the new IP address, connecting to your remote PC would be impossible.

DynDNS.com solves this problem by letting you choose a free host name to use and associate with your dynamic IP address.  Using DynDNS.com, you can create a host name, such as “myipaddress.home-ip.net” and assign that name to point to your IP address.   Now you only have to enter “myipaddress.home-ip.net” in the Remote Desktop Connection program instead of the IP address.

Then, using the DynDNS updater utility, you can automatically update DynDNS.com with your new IP address (if it changes).  Therefore, you only have to remember the “myipaddress.home-ip.net” address instead of the numerical IP address (e.g. 74.123.124.83).  You also will never have to worry about your IP address changing because the dyn-dns updater utility will automatically update your host name with your new IP address.  The updater utility is available on DynDNS.com and I would highly recommend to use the utility to update your host name with IP address changes.

If you setup a host name with DynDNS, you will never have to remember your home IP address again.  The updater utility takes care of the times when your IP address changes and updates your host name with the new address.  Therefore, using only your host name such as “myipaddress.home-ip.net”, you can connect to a Remote Desktop enabled PC even if you don’t know the IP address.  This process has been working for me for over a year with no problems at all.

Almost all of us have come to the point where we had to reinstall our operating system whether it be Windows, Linux, or MacOS.  Typically, it would take me about 2 hours on a good day to rebuild a machine by completely reinstalling Windows XP, all drivers, and standard software like Firefox, Office, etc.   However, restoring a system using imaging software such as Acronis True Image takes only 20 minutes.   While I don’t reinstall often, it is a pain when I have to.  This is where making an image of your PC can come in handy; you won’t have to manually restore everything because you will be able to restore an image.

Making an “image” basically means taking a snapshot (image) of all of the data on your hard drive and storing it in a file which can be restored at a later date.  The image contains your operating system (like Windows XP), all files which were on your computer when you made the image, and all configuration settings like your Windows product key, computer name, etc.

When an image is made, you can choose what to make an image of, whether it be a couple of folders or the whole hard drive.  Typically, the image is compressed to save space, and can then be stored anywhere you want.  It would be a good idea to store the image file on a separate hard drive, like an external hard drive, in the event that your main hard drive dies.  If that happens, you’ll still have your image in a safe place.

Once you have reinstalled the operating system on a computer, installed all the drivers, configured your settings, and installed your necessary software, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make an image.  Making an image takes roughly 20-30 minutes (or longer depending on how much data) and then takes about the same time to restore.

The imaging software I recommend is the Acronis True Image series.  Because of the intuitive backup and restore wizards, the software is extremely easy to use with lots of customization.  Another thing I really like about the Acronis True Image products is that it lets you create a boot CD which contains all of the same backup and restore utilities found in the main program.  This means that you won’t have to load the software onto the PC being imaged; you can just pop in the boot CD and make an image.  The image can then be stored in a variety of places such as a hard drive in the PC, a network share, and USB drive.

When the time comes to restore your image because of say, a virus or corrupted system files, the boot CD can be used to restore the image.  Just boot from the CD and use the restore wizard to restore your image to your hard drive.  You’ll then have a fully functioning system ready to go, in a fraction of the time it would take you to manually reinstall all of the software!  This is a fairly common practice used by many IT companies to cut down on time spent