How To Use Stinger to Remove a Virus

While the age of the computer and the Internet has brought a myriad of conveniences to many people worldwide, it has likewise opened up a lot of risk. Because of the easy access of digital information, many people with malicious content have developed viruses to either plague another person’s computer or to steal critical information off of it. Fortunately, there are companies, like McAfee, that are on top of the situation. They have foreseen these risks which is why they are always providing the best anti-virus security applications out in the market that any normal user can install on their computer.

* Stinger is one of those programs that McAfee came up with. It is a program set apart from the typical McAfee suite of security applications. Hence, it can stand alone as a separate application. Now, Stinger is a great utility to use for detecting and removing undesirables in your computer, particularly the ever harmful viruses floating around the Internet. However, this particular program is not a general antivirus that you commonly see installed in most PCs. Technically, this particular antivirus only works when the virus plaguing a PC is suspected or known. That said it can only remove certain viruses that it was designed to remove.
* Start the download. Stinger is free to use and can be easily downloaded on the McAfee Threat Center site. Click on the link provided and that should open your browser to display the Stinger download page. Click on the download link and wait for the application to completely download.
* Stop System Restore. If the System Restore feature of Windows is running and enabled, make sure to disable it for now. This is because Stinger won’t be able to scan any files located inside the folder for System Restore. Hence, if there is an infected file there, it will not detect it when it is enabled. To disable the feature, simply open the Start menu and select My Computer. Right-click on it and choose Properties. Move to the tab labeled System Restore and tick the box provided to disable the feature. Hit OK and the feature will be disabled. Don’t worry, you can always re-enable it later on after the Stinger scan.
* Start scanning. With System Restore out of the picture, navigate to where you saved the Stinger app file and double-click on it. This will run the program. There is no need to install it. Once the Stinger panel appears, set the scan to run through all the hard drives installed. When you are done with that, hit the Scan Now link and Stinger will now do the dirty job.

If any viruses are detected, it will inform you and ask you what to do. You can set it to delete, quarantine, or clean the infected file. If there are no notifications of a virus but want to check if it scanned all the files in your computer, you can open the Preference tab and enable the feature that will command the program to list every file that it scans.