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I reinstalled my win7 PC yesterday and when I launched Nvidia Control Panel today and wanted to set profile for specific application, there were applications from previous installment visible (i had "Show only programs installed" checked). When I typed the name into Start and clicked "Open location" I got message it no longer exists.

What i did when reinstalling was as usual except I just removed all partitions (so the whole disk was unspecified space) and then ran installation on that.

Does this means that if there was virus in my previous installment could it survive (if we dont count specific cases of viruses who resides in MOBO's UEFI bios or something)? Also i did Avast/MalwareBytes check which found nothing before reinstallment but PC acted really strange. Could it be just some registry entries which survived or undeleted memory on disk which somehow gets read?

Thanks for any explanation/clarification.

eXPRESS
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1 Answers1

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I'm a bit unclear about the method used for re-installing Windows, but this might not be important, since you do not wish to totally destroy your setup.

Formatting the disk is the only sure-fire way of starting from a clean state. Viruses may hide everywhere and may even survive the re-installation of Windows. Even after re-installation with format, infection is still possible if you are installing an infected package.

There have lately been found cases where crooks have legally bought popular products or browser extensions and released a "new and improved" version which contained a virus, thus, for example, letting your browser's auto-update feature re-infect the computer for them.

The only other solution beside formatting is to multiply anti-virus checks by multiple products, and keep on doing that for some time in the future. I recommend Malwarebytes as one. See also the article Best Free Antivirus Software and our post How can I remove malicious spyware, malware, adware, viruses, trojans or rootkits from my PC?. Check the extensions installed on your browser(s), since that's another favorite of hackers.

harrymc
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