I installed a fresh copy of XP Pro on an old P4 a while ago to use as my new desktop - general work, cheap gaming, etc. Updated it to SP2, correct drivers installed, etc.
An hour after getting it hooked up to the net, I found that I'd received about 1,000 viruses. (That'll teach me to web-enable a Windows system without installing firewalls, antiviruses, the works.)
After many days trying to balance school and restoring my system (without re-installing the entire OS and going from scratch again, because damn, it's got a SLOW USB 1.0 or 1.1 port, and damn, it's got an even slower 1x or 2x CD-ROM reader), I figured I would just put Linux on there and get a copy of ClamAV (or some other AV program) to clean out the rest of the infected files. (I got rid of about half of the viruses using the BitDefender Live CD.)
So my questions are:
1.) After finding out which files are infected, how should I proceed? If they're important files, would it be okay to simply replace them with uninfected files? Or should I list them here (or MajorGeeks, that place seems pretty good, too) and ask you guys for some more advice?
2.) Should I even use ClamAV? I've seen some other AV programs around, and I'm not sure if any is better. About the only other one that I'm giving consideration to is Panda AV, but that's only because it can disinfect. I'm not too keen on its usefulness as an AV.
...or should I ask about this in the Windows forums?
Thanks again, aD. Especially after you helped out with my netbook.
