5 Tips to Cleaning Up Your Windows Hard Drive after Experiencing a Virus

A virus infection on your computer is a total headache. It does a lot of frustrating things to your programs, files, applications, and your unit as a whole, and sometimes their effects linger. They cause your unit to malfunction and affects your productivity and enjoyment. As well, infected computers not treated immediately may allow the virus to replicate and cause more and wider damage to the system, hampering proper functions, among other serious problems.

With the help of a good windows antivirus software, you can get rid of these viruses and regain the smooth functions of your computer. However, it doesn’t end in just running your antivirus, some cleaning steps after that are also required to ensure your computer is safe to run again. Here are some of the ways:

1. Re-run a Virus Scan

After allowing your antivirus software to work, clean your computer, and delete the virus, you need to restart it. Then, as soon as your restart, re-run a virus, spyware, and malware scan on it once again. This is to make sure that no more virus is left in the system and that everything is completely cleaned.

2. Cleaning Cache and Cooking on Browser

One of the possibly most affected applications in your computer is your browser, so you need to clean this up after running your antivirus. First, clear your browser history. This is to delete sites that may have possibly cause the virus. The, clean your cache and cookies to make sure no trace of the virus is left behind.

3. Delete corrupted, unreadable files and programs

The next area you need to check and clean are your file folders. There may be corrupted files that were not deleted during the antivirus run and you need to manually delete these so no trace of the virus is potentially left in the system. Do the same for your programs. Uninstall programs that are suspicious and might have caused the virus or from it.

4. Run a Disk Clean Up

After all the steps are done and all files and applications that are corrupted are removed, the next step is to clean the whole system. To do this, you need to run a cleanup to every drive and disk on your computer. This function is found in your start up menu or can be accessed through a search. Make sure all disks undergo through the clean- up for assurance.

5. Clear Your Recycle Bin

Finally, when all has been done, you need to clear out your recycle bin for the files and applications that were removed and now sitting on trash. This will totally remove the files and traces of it on your computer for good. Once you are done, restart your computer and you can use it again.

There’s no such thing as too careful and too thorough when it comes to your computer’s security, you need to do what needs to be done to prevent the virus from corrupting your files and affecting your computer’s performance.