XP Users: a note about cleaning the worms from your system

Something I'd not thought about, but Symantec's site brought up, is the fact that Windows XP has a System Restore feature which lets you restore your computer to a previous state. Because it is continually running, saving your settings as "restore points" along the way.

Because of this, it's very important you DISABLE System Restore before you run your antivirus clean-up for the worm. After you've cleaned the virus from your PC, you can re-enable System Restore. Otherwise, Windows XP may well save the worm as part of its system restore, and you'll just reinfect yourself if you have to do a restore later.

For more information about what System Restore is and what it does, see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/ballew/03may19.asp

For directions on how to disable it and re-enable it, see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310405

Note that System Restore does NOT save data such as e-mail, pictures, documents you've created, etc. In a nutshell, it is for program settings.

This message was edited Thursday, Aug 21st 4:27 PM