How To Remove Viruses And Malware in Windows Safe Mode

Posted by Michael on October 15, 2010

Being infected by virus or malware is something very common these days. Sometimes it’s very hard to remove these infections. Modern forms of malware try to avoid detection by altering the Operating System. Others attack your antivirus so it cannot work properly. This means that if you get infected by a virus newer than your antivirus definitions there is a chance you can’t get rid of it.

In this post I am going to address this problem and show you a way to solve it.

Safe Mode and How Important is to Control Viruses

As I explained earlier, before a virus attempts to hide their activities by changing the default operating system behavior. Given that it usually download programs on Windows Start-Up. One way to stop it is hedged with the mode. In Safe Mode, Windows loads only the essential services makes it difficult for the antivirus to work.

The way I prefer to enter Safe Mode is using MsConfig. Of course you can use F8 at boot but sometimes you miss your chance (or can’t be sure when) to press that key when Windows is loading.

Safe Mode In Windows XP

Press WinKey + R, type msconfig and press Enter.

Go to Boot.ini tab and select /SAFEBOOT and MINIMAL. This way the minimum number of files will be load in the next reboot. Once you enter on Safe Mode you have to change this so Windows start in normal mode.

Next time you boot you will see something like this:

Safe Mode In Windows Vista and Windows 7

As we have done before with Windows XP, press WinKey + R , type msconfig and press Enter.

Go to Boot tab, select Safe boot and minimal, don’t forget to press Set as default. As you can see is very similar as we have done on Windows XP.

Here you can see a Windows 7 in Safe Mode.

Portable Antivirus Software – Why it’s so Important

I have written, how it spreads is that anti-virus software should be altered so that programs can be rendered useless. You can not always rely on your antivirus installed, if you have an infection. So you need a program that do not need to install. You can not do everything in safe mode, but the most anti-virus software to have a portable version. These portable versions do not have to change everything in your machine so that it can work in safe mode.

The best way to download the following software is on another machine that is not infected. Once you have it you only need to double click to execute. Usually they will need to update before you use, so do it before entering in Safe Mode (on the other machine on which you downloaded it.)

SuperAntiSpyWare Portable Scanner

Before using it you need to update the definitions so is better if you do this in normal mode.