How to clean a computer with multiple accounts infected with spyware, viruses? [duplicate]

You also should boot up the computer in safe mode, because anti-spyware/virus software may not be able remove infected files in normal mode.

"Whilst I agree with nuking the hard disk, sometimes it's not always practical. Say for instance you have some rare software you can't reinstall because you don't have the original media or keys and can't afford to replace it. This happened recently to a friend.

On the other hand, some things just can't be cleaned - I've seen instances of Windows where every single .exe and .dll has been terminally infected. However, I'd say quite a bit of malware and spyware can be recovered from. In which case I'd either put the offending hard disk into another PC to clean or boot from a live CD such as created using BartPE.

Another thing with spyware etc., no single product fixes everything so you may have to try several things. You may even have to resort to editing the registry and removing files manually. Google is your friend - somebody somewhere has almost always been in the same position."
"Whilst I agree with nuking the hard disk, sometimes it's not always practical. Say for instance you have some rare software you can't reinstall because you don't have the original media or keys and can't afford to replace it. This happened recently to a friend.

On the other hand, some things just can't be cleaned - I've seen instances of Windows where every single .exe and .dll has been terminally infected. However, I'd say quite a bit of malware and spyware can be recovered from. In which case I'd either put the offending hard disk into another PC to clean or boot from a live CD such as created using BartPE.

Another thing with spyware etc., no single product fixes everything so you may have to try several things. You may even have to resort to editing the registry and removing files manually. Google is your friend - somebody somewhere has almost always been in the same position."

"Famous quote from Aliens seems appropriate here.

But seriously, without wiping and reinstalling the OS there is no way to be sure. If you absolutely can't reinstall you at minimum must boot from a different drive to clean it."