Virus and spyware infections are an ongoing problem with computing technology. The more we do to prevent them, others do more to circumvent prevention methods. Just like germs passed between humans, computer viruses work in much the same way. They can be contracted through a friendly chat session with friends or family, downloads from the internet, exchanging photos, or sending/receiving e-mails. In the real world, we take precautions to stay healthy and the same rings true in the cyber world. You may have anti-virus, spam filters, anti-adware, firewalls and other preventative software installed - but suddenly you begin receiving pop-ups, your computer slows down, then you start getting strange error messages. You might think, "How is this possible?" with all the preventative software installed on your machine. Just as in the real world, you can still catch a cold no matter how well you protect yourself.

At the first sign of an infection you should shut your computer down and bring it to us. If the infection is caught early enough it can sometimes be removed leaving your machine intact. If the infection has had time to extensively damage your machine, it is normally best to backup your data and scan it for any infections, then wipe your hard drive and reinstall your operating system. It may sound extreme, but is usually much less expensive than wasting hours fighting a viral infection that has had time to get into numerous directories on your hard drive and possibly even the master boot record.

Remember, before we do anything with a machine that shows symptoms of a viral infection, we first find out exactly what the problem is, and then recommend the best approach versus repair cost. Here are just a few examples of how we evaluate whether to reinstall the operating system or remove the viral infection, but leave the machine intact:

Some reasons you should clear the hard drive and reinstall:

• 1. It takes a maximum of 2 hours to install the Operating System which establishes a set price for the job.
• 2. There may be irreparable damage to the operating system after removal if the infection has had an opportunity to evolve. This can cause performance and software issues difficult to recover from and can become very costly.

Some reasons you shouldn't clear the hard drive and reinstall:

• 1. If you cannot locate the original disks to reinstall software from your job or for online classes.
• 2. If the infection has been contained or hasn't had an opportunity to evolve.
• 3. If you are running a server that provides a number of services for your business and you don't have a recent clean recovery point or a failover server.

Viruses and other PC infections can be prevented, but when you fall victim to an infection, we work to get you back up and running as quickly as possible, while also recovering as much of your data as possible.