• Installing Spybot Search and Destroy
• Running Spybot Search and Destroy
• Spybot S&D Error Message
• Immunizing PC With Spybot S&D
• Spybot S&D Recovering Lost Items

The first time you are running Spybot you will have a few prompt boxes that you can click away and will never show up again.

The first prompt warns you that you are removing “advertising robots” also known as Spyware. If you use shareware applications this may affect these applications. Shareware applications rely heavily on their advertisements to make money. Unfortunately their advertisements make take over your computer. Chances are you can do anything a shareware program offers you for free, without them. If you e-mail me with questions or refer to our forums, we may be able to guide you in a better direction. Check off the “Don’t show this message again” box and then click “OK”.

The next box warns you of possible compatibility issues with Ad-Aware. I personally never have had a problem using both programs on any PC. I have worked on and installed these programs on over 1000 machines and never have had a problem or a complaint from a customer. As before click on the “Do not display compatibility warnings again” then click “OK”.

The next prompt will be the following box that will give you the option to create a registry back up. This is HIGHLY recommended. If your registry becomes corrupt you will need to be able to restore it. This function eliminates the process of having to do it manually. Click on the “Create registry backup” button and wait a few minutes (depending on the speed of your PC) until it is complete. When this is finished you will see the “Please wait… this may take a few minutes…” will disappear from the prompt box. Once that is no longer visible, the “NEXT” button will not be grayed out and you will be able to click on it. Once everything is finished click “NEXT”.

The next prompt box will allow you to search for updates. We recommend initially performing a scan first and then updating after the initial scan and re-scanning. The reason this is recommended, is because you may not be able to get an Internet connection at first depending on how bad your Spyware problem may be. Please click “NEXT” and continue with the prompts.

The next prompt box is for immunizing the system. Please do not do this before you have completed a full scan. Once the full scan is complete please turn to the Immunize this system section for step-by-step instructions. This section is extremely helpful and easy feature. Please click “NEXT”.

The last prompt box looks exactly as follows. Please click on “Start using the program”.

Running Spybot S&D

Once you have followed the installation instructions for the initial run the program is very easy and self-explanatory. Notice that there are only five buttons on the left hand menu side and they each explain their function. Since we are using it for the first time please click on “Check for problems” button.

Spybot will automatically start to deep scan your system and the registry for advertising bots, malicious cookies and other forms of Spyware available. Depending on the speed of your system this may take a few minutes. As Spybot finds these entries on your system it will list them in the window as you see below.

Once finished you can view and expand each one. Each one provides a detail explanation as to what registry key or program folder it is located in. Once looking through them and verifying that it is not a program regularly used click on the “Fix selected problems” button. By default all the “problems found” will be check off. If there is any problems found that you know are programs that you use you can uncheck them and Spybot will ignore them as it fixes the others. I recommend a full clean up as you can go back and manually recover anything that is deemed necessary or needed for applications running.

After you have clicked on the “Fix selected problems” a pop-up box will appear notifying you that you “Are about remove the checked entries. Do you want to continue?” Click “YES” when this box appears.

Once it is finished, it will then display a confirmation box, informing you how many problems it has fixed. At times if you have an enormous amount of Spyware it will not be able to remove it immediately and it will ask you if you want to run the program again as windows starts in order to remove all the Spyware before it has a chance to run. If that prompt box appears click “YES” and once it is finished, immediately reboot and allow your system to fix the selected problems.

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