User Guide

User’s Guide 73
Removing Infections From Your System
Recognizing when you don’thaveavirus
Personal computers haveevolved, intheirshort lifespan, intohighly complex
machines thatrun ever-more-complicated software. Even the most farsighted
of the early PC advocates could never have imagined the tasks for which
workers, scientists and others have harnessed the modern PC’s speed,
flexibility and power. But that power comes with a price: hardware and
software conflicts abound, applications and operating systems crash, and
hundreds of other problems can crop up in unlikely places. In some cases,
these failures can resemble the sorts of effects that you see when you have a
virus infection with a destructive payload. Other computer failures seem to
defy explanation or diagnosis, so frustrated users blame virus infections,
perhaps as a last resort.
Because viruses do leave traces, however, you can usually eliminate a virus
infection asapossible causeforcomputerfailure relatively quicklyandeasily.
Running a full DrSolomon’s Anti-Virus scan operation will uncover all of the
known virus variants that can infect your computer, and quite a few of those
thathavenoknownnameordefinedbehavior.Althoughthatdoesn’tgiveyou
muchhelpwhenyour problem really results from aninterruptconflict, it does
allow youto eliminate onepossible cause. With that knowledge, youcan then
go on to troubleshoot your system with a full-featured system diagnosis
utility.
More serious is the confusion that results from virus-like programs, virus
hoaxes, and real security breaches. Anti-virus software simply cannot detect
or respond to such destructive agents as Trojan horse programs that have
neverappearedpreviously,ortheperceptionthata virusexistswhere none in
fact does.
The best way to determine whether your computer failure resulted from a
virusattackistorunacompletescanoperation,thenpayattentiontothe
results. If the Dr Solomon’s Anti-Virus application does not report a virus
infection, the chances that your problem results from one are slight—look to
other causes for the symptoms you see. Furthermore, in the very rare event
that the Dr Solomon’s Anti-Virus application does miss a macro virus or
another virus type that has in fact infected your system, the chances are
relativelysmall that serious failureswillfollow in itswake. You can, however,
rely on Dr Solomon’s researchers to identify and isolate the virus, then to
update Dr Solomon’s Anti-Virus immediately so that you can detect and, if
possible, remove the virus when you next encounter it. To learn how you can
help the virus researchers help you, see “Reporting new items for anti-virus
data file updates” on page xxiv.