How To Get Viruses Off Your Windows 7 Computer

New variants of viruses , Trojans, Spyware and other malicious threats pop up almost on a daily basis, with a lot of them getting harder to detect and to get rid off . Many recent computer viruses and other malicious threats can replicate, propagate and adapt to and even disable security programs installed on a computer. Two of the notorious viruses can update itself and keep evolving and is highly adaptable  to the security applications are Conficker Virus and Heur Virus. A virus-prone computer easily be infected because of users’  lack of knowledge of basic security measures to protect their computer against potential threats or simply because they are not aware how to apply the operating system security patches, configure firewall settings and perform other basic security measures. Windows 7 and its previous Windows versions  have continuously become subject to relentless  virus attacks which according to a statistics figure power 90% of all computers, .  This post explains steps on how to  to prevent , minimize virus infection and  get viruses off your Windows 7 computer.

One of the preventive measures to reduce the  havoc wrought by viruses is by backing up data and the operating system  on a regular basis  on different media storage. The backups should be kept in a separate media and are completely unconnected to the system all of the time, read-only or not accessible from your computer. By backing up your data and operating system files, any possible data loss done by a virus can be restored to the last known good configurations. So first and foremost, you are highly recommended to  create a backup of your data, files, and operating system files when you are 100% sure your Windows 7 computer is free from virus infections and store them on an external hard disk.

Steps to Viruses Off Your Windows 7 Computer

Activate Windows Update. The first step to take is to update your  Windows 7, Windows Update works to close the security holes, weaknesses or flaws contained in the operating system normally used by viruses to exploit, infect or propagate themselves. All paid software vendors are generally required to issue security updates to patch the security holes that may exist  in its products over a certain period of time or when there is  a new security threat that exploits their program weakness . Windows Update is a very important and basic security measure to prevent a virus infections, yet  most computer users disable it from their computers. Windows update is deactivated by users for several reasons such as to make their computer run faster as a frequent and periodic Windows update can interfere with computer and internet access speed  or simply out of ignorance . Given the importance of the Windows updates to get rid off a virus infections or other malicious program’s exploits , enabling  Windows Update is a must.

To enable Windows updates you can do from Control Panel:

From the Start menu go to Control Panel  —- System Security — Windows Update then click Turn Automatic Updating On Or Off.  You will be taken to  a “ Choose how Windows can install updates”  Window where you can select when and how Windows update will be downloaded, it is recommended you select the option Install updates automatically. And uncheck all the available options and then hit the OK  button

Enable Anti Virus.

As the name suggests an antivirus is an application to eliminate or get rid viruses off your computer and  prevent a virus infection. The antivirus needs to be updated on a regular basis or configured to update automatically so as to make your computer as safe as possible against the latest threats. Viruses and other malicious programs essentially play a catch up game rendering an outdated antivirus useless and can not detect and recognize viruses. Most recent viruses can update cleverly themselves to avoid detection even some of them are capable of deactivating antivirus software. A vast majority of savvy computer users install a third party antivirus application on their computer. Personally I use Comodo Antivirus, a free yet powerful antivirus software which ,according to my experience  is among of the best antivirus for Windows 7. Windows 7 itself comes with a Microsoft Security Essentials,  a free built-in Windows antivirus tool designed to prevent, detect and get rid your computer off a virus infection.

To activate it go to Start and type Microsoft Security Essentials in the Search Box then click on it and then turn Real-time protection options on and  make sure spyware definitions are always up to date.You can also configure your computer to make regular scan and determine  when you want to scan your computer by hitting the Settings tab.

Enable  Firewall. A firewall works to control closed or open ports ports. Computer ports are virtual doors that enable computer software to share hardware and communicate with each other’s resources. A computer firewall serves to control network traffic traveling through  virtual ports. It additionally provides some control over the flow of traffic on each port for security purposes. Each port has its own purpose , for example ports 135-139 is used for sharing files over a computer network,  port 25 for sending email via SMTP protocol, port 110 for receiving email, port 3389 for remote desktop and so on. Windows firewall will allow those ports by default and disable other ports that can be exploited by unwanted programs. There a lot of third party firewalls on the market to chose from, some can be used for free with certain limitations with most of them are paid applications. I have covered some of them in the previous post,  just visit the following link : best firewall for Windows 7.

To activate Windows  Firewall Go to the Start – Control Panel – System & Security and then click on the Window Firewall. Windows Firewall will then be displayed, as shown in the figure below, to activate it  select Turn Windows Firewall on or off on the left menu.

Once  Windows Firewall is active, you can pick which ports for specific applications you want to open or close. To make changes to  Windows Firewall settings  select the Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall  option on the left menu or if you are not sure what ports and applications you want to open or close you can simply click on “use recommended settings”. Once completed click the OK button.

Enable  AppLocker, AppLocker is a new built-in security feature included in Windows 7. which to restrict applications that can be used by a user. This tool is useful when a Windows 7 computer is used by two people or more, you can restrict which applications are allowed to run by specific users, eg, user A may run applications A, B and C, while user B can only run applications E, F and G . In addition AppLocker can also be configured to prevent users from running portable applications requiring no installation which is usually prone to  by malware or viruse infections. To enable AppLocker type in Local Security Policy the Instant Search then click Application Control Policies in left menu and then click AppLocker.

To allow certain users to run specific  tasks right click on Executable rules bellow the “AppLoacker”  and select Create New Rule. You will be prompted by a “Before Your Begin window”, then click Next as shown in the bellow picture:

In Permissions Window, you will find two options (rules): Allow and Deny, for example if you want  prevent certain users from running particular applications select Deny, then from the User or Group windows pick users who will be denied access and then click Next button.

Next you will be prompted with Conditions window where you can restrict users from running specific tasks based on software publishers, Folder  Path and File Hass. For example you want to prevent user A from using an application A installed on your computer you can check  the Publisher option and then browse to the application that user is denied access to and then click OK. If user A login to the computer and tries to use the application A he or she will be denied access to run the application A. Restrictions can also be applied based on folder path in which a user is restricted to run any applications located in the restricted folder, in this case you will need to check the “Path” option.

Still confused on how to configure Windows 7 AppLocker? Just take a look a the video bellow to find out more:

Those are basically steps to protect  and how to get viruses off your Windows 7 computer and other programs that can exploit your security holes in your Windows 7 computer.

Visitors who come to this post are searching for:

• firewall windows 7
• windows 7 in my user in virus
• windows 7 firewall settings add port

Filed under: Computer & Networking

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!