Delete Infected Computer Files
Infected files can become a pain, sometimes you can find infected files cannot be deleted. This simple method will show you how to bypass the protection of delete.
Contents
Steps
- Back up as much of your important data as possible before modifying any file on your computer. See Warnings and Tips.
- Scan your computer with several antivirus and anti-spyware programs. See Related Articles.
- Write down all file names that cannot be deleted by your antivirus/antispyware programs.
- Boot into safe mode.
- Restart your computer.
- While the computer is booting up press F8 (you may need to rapidly tap F8 if your computer is fast).
- Log on as the Admin of the computer.
- To make sure that system restore has not inadvertently saved an infected file, disable it then scan the computer. Only do this if you are 100% sure that you will not be using system restore at this moment.
- Search for a known infected file. Type the name of the file into the filename box and do not restrict the search by date, time or size. If no results show, search for the name in the "contains text" search field. This may bring up several files, not all of which are infected. To determine which is the correct file, you need to know what purpose the file serves, is it a registry file? (warning!), it may also help to visit the website (virus/spyware database) of the antivirus/antispyware programs that you found the file with if any. Much of the time there is more current information on how to deal with the infected file.
- Select the infected file when you have logged on and hold shift then press the delete key (this bypasses the recycle bin and completely removes it).
- Re-enable system restore if it is not likely that the computer will fail in some manner (lose data for instance or that the file you deleted was a false positive or registry file).
Tips
- Restarting in safe mode basically has the computer run the very minimum of software. It makes scanning your computer more effective as the scanning software can freely scan your disk without any programs modifying files in the meantime.
Warnings
- Be very careful with deleting certain files, especially registry files as they are usually critical to your computer's workings.
- If you delete files that are required by certain programs then the program may not work anymore.
- If you delete operating systems files then you may need to reinstall your current operating system.
- Make sure you know that the file is infected before you delete it.
