will a re format and reinstall of windows remove all virus's ,worms and spyware?

Hello bluekat,

The answer to your question is usually, but not always. 

There are viruses that can store themselves in the boot sector, and a
reinstall would NOT remove a virus like this.
See: http://www.sophos.com/support/disinfection/dbrvir.html

"In the second case, boot sector infectors are still rather common and
can be removed by anti-virus products - they usually have at least one
option to do the disinfection. It is not usually a good idea to try to
remove boot sector infectors using other tools such as sector editors
or FDISK - there are so many different ways that partition/boot
sectors can be garbled doing this that it is best to avoid them if
possible."
SOURCE: http://www.itsecurity.com/asktecs/aug3001.htm

The safest and probably best way to clean the computer is to purchase
and run antivirus software which will get rid of all your viruses.

You should also run the free version of Ad-Aware to remove any spyware:
http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=506 (Be sure to update the
software after installing it using the update feature).

If you want to do a free virus scan, I recommend this website:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_corp.asp It will
remove all viruses from your computer, but you should still purchase
and install antivirus software to prevent this from happening again.

I hope this was the type of answer you were expecting. Please let me
know if you require any additional clarification, and I will do my
best to further assist you.

tisme-ga


Search Strategy:

boot sector reformat viruses
adaware

thanks

I am not sure the information regarding the commonness of boot sector
viruses is up to date (though note that I am not sure it is incorrect
either, I would just find it suspect until further confirmation).

I *am* sure, however, that the second page linked refers to viruses
inside the CMOS chip, which are very very rare, and that boot sector
viruses (which infect the hard drive, but in a place before where the
filesystem is stored) would be wiped clean from a reformat (not a mere
reinstall).

Running FDISK /MBR in Win9x computers FROM A BOOT DISK should perform
a similar wiping clean of boot viruses though you should note that it
will NOT work without booting from a boot disk (the virus will load
and possibly sabatoge any attempts to be overwritten) and that it MAY
cause damage to your partition data (and thus mess up your system) and
that the virus has a good chance of being somewhere else on the disk
as well as an executable or hidden file.

Also, you should note that F-Prot Antivirus for Windows (my
longstanding favorite Windows and DOS anti-virus software, until
recently free) still comes with a free 30-day trial for home users, so
you can clean up your system if you have anything nasty without being
able to update in the future, though if you've gotten a virus once
you'll probably get one again.

http://www.f-prot.com/download/home_user/