A computer virus can really put a damper on anyone's day – or week, depending on how bad it can be. If you have ever had a virus on your computer before, then you know just how annoying they can be. When faced with a virus, many people think they must immediately run off to the local computer repair shop to have it taken care of. While that is certainly a viable option, it can get expensive! If you don't have the money or the inclination to g

et outside help, though, don't worry – you can learn how to fix computer viruses yourself, and it is not as hard as you might previously have thought!

Computer viruses can come in many different forms. Trojans, browser hijackers, adware, spyware and more are all considered computer viruses. You may also hear them being referred to as “malware.” Malware is rather easily picked up – if you download a lot of things from the Internet, you are bound to run into one at some point. Unfortunately, as easy as they are to acquire, they aren't always as easy to get rid of.

If your computer is infected, you need to get it taken care of as soon as possible to avoid the problem getting worse. If your hard drive is too far gone, then you may not be able to salvage it, and that will require a reformat and a new installation of your operating system!If you begin noticing odd behavior – things are running too slowly, you get random pop up ads, you are taken to webpages that aren't the webpages you were actually trying to go to, or your computer starts freezing and crashing – then you may have a virus.

The first thing to do is eliminate places for the viruses to hide. The System Restore function of your Windows operating system is a favorite place for malware to take up residence, because your average anti virus program can't touch that data. Right click on My Computer and select “Properties.” Click on the System Restore tab and select “Turn Off System Restore.” Then click on the Apply button, and then the OK button. Turning off system restore will stop the virus from being able to reinstall itself when you reboot your computer after you run a virus scan.

After you have done that, run your anti virus program. If it finds any infections, use the program's delete function to get rid of the offending entries, then reboot your computer. Once your computer has booted back up again, run the anti virus program again. If it detects no more infections, you are set – if it does, run the fix again and reboot again. Repeat the process until your hard drive comes back clean!