Safe Mode for Virus removal

Discussion in 'Malware Help - MG (A Specialist Will Reply)' started by hcrawfor, Jan 2, 2008.

  1. hcrawfor

    hcrawfor Private First Class

    A computer tech friend of mine informed me that any virus removal utilities should be run in ‘Safe Mode’ in Windows XP for the most effective results. Is this true of Spybot, Combofix.exe or MGtools.exe? I don’t see any mention of running these programs in ‘Safe Mode’ at majorgeeks. I just wanted to double check. Thanks
     
  2. abri

    abri MajorGeek

    Hi hcrawfor!
    Welcome to Major Geeks!

    We have recommended running Spybot in Safe Mode and you can do that. The others you should run in normal mode and make sure your msconfig is set to normal system start. There are some tools that are more effective in Safe Mode and others which are not. If we don't tell you to run something in Safe Mode, then we mean for it to be run in Normal Mode.

    abri
     
  3. chaslang

    chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

    Actually this is not true anymore. The only part of the READ ME that mentions safe mode is when running CCleaner on the Administrator account. And this is only necessary because that is the only way you get access to the Administrator account.

    hcrawfor,

    Yes it could be true that running scans in safe mode could help to remove certain components of malware. But at the same time, some aspects of malware may not even show in safe mode. In addition, much of the current malware that exists these days, will not get removed whether you are in safe mode or normal boot mode. These new types of malware require special tools and manual removal procedures.

    We have also run into many problems with even getting into or out of safe boot mode and also with running various scans in safe boot mode. Also the act of multiple boots to change from normal to safe and then back to normal, can cause certain forms of malware to spread and mutate. Thus we need to avoid all the rebooting.

    Thus, taking all of the above into account, we changed the READ & RUN ME to not require booting in safe mode. Now we would only have you boot in safe mode in special circumstances.
     

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