System Restore and Viruses

[shadow0890]

Hi. Recently, I've had a trojan on my system which tried putting itself into my System Restore backup points. Luckily, my AVG caught all of the files of the trojan and deleted them, including the ones which it tried to put into my System Restore backups. I have heard that when you have a virus/trojan on your computer, you are supposed to turn off System Restore so it can delete all of your restore points because the virus may still be backed up in it. I really don't like doing this because if I ever need to restore one of those points, I won't be able to.

Even though AVG deleted all of the trojan's files in the system restore backups, should I still turn off System Restore? Would it be okay for me to keep it running without deleting all of my previous restores or would it be best for me to delete all of them? What do you think?

[Zxian]

Well... how often do you use System Restore? It will help sometimes, but in other situations it'll bodge your system even more than it already is.

In general, I would recommend deleting the system restore points, just for safety's sake. With a little bit of work, you can easily get your computer back to the way it was at that point in time anyways, without the need for System Restore.

Just to be on the safe side, I would recommend running an online scan, just to be sure that you got everything. Trend Micro HouseCall is a good first stop.

If you want a proper backup solution, I would look into getting a program like Acronis True Image. It's not free ($49.99), but it works like a charm and takes a proper backup image of your system. I just restored my system last night after having messed around with some system files - just click through the options and 10 minutes later my computer was back to it's good ol' perfect self. Worth the money for me for the sake of peace of mind.

[dman]

If your puter is working ok why you need old restore points. good to douche them once in a while anyway. just create a new one after you delete them