Leythos wrote:

> Most people don't even come close to the skills necessary to clean a
> machine without assistance of other software. Cleaning a machine without
> tools would take longer than a wipe/reinstall.
>

I'm sorry if I didn't make myself clear. I did not mean to suggest
cleaning a PC without any software, I meant not attempting to install
any new software on the infected hdd. IMO: a possible problem with
loading new software on a PC that is already infected, is that the
existing malware may adversly affect that installation of the
anti-malware software. Of couse, if the installation of anti-malware
software is adversly affected, that would in turn adversly affect the
attempted malware removal.

A potential problem with removing malware with a wipe/reinstall is that
the owner of the PC have not have all the CDs required to re-install
all of the software. Or, the CDs may be in bad condition. Or, the PC
owner may have the CDs, but not the registration numbers. I have also
known people to deliberately hide important data files in program
directories.

I think it would be great if there was some super-duper anti-malware
software that could work over a network to totally clean an infected
hdd. It would be great, IMO, if I could boot the infected PC from a
floppy or CD, because I never trust that the malware was removed if the
the malware is running during the malware scan.

A problem with removing the hdd is that laptops are becoming more
common that desktops. And hdds are not always easy to remove on
laptops. Also, removing an hdd may even void a warrenty.

I suppose another possibility would be to use msconfig to make sure
that only the essential services are started. But I don't know if I can
totally trust msconfig to do that on an infected machine.