If you are like me you don't want to spend 5+ hours running 3 different spyware scanners to insure you removed all the spyware from your computer nor do you want to reinstall windows and go through the hassle of reloading all your programs. In this article I will introduce you to two free anti-spyware tools that will let you remove all the spyware that is on your computer.

Meet Msconfig

Msconfig is included in all versions of windows (except 2000 and 95), it has the capability of showing you all the startup entries in the registry and allows you to remove them. I always use Msconfig first because it allows you to easily undo the changes that you make to the registry. To use msconfig just click Start->Run, type in "msconfig" and press enter. The first thing I do is go to the "startup" tab and remove everything there. Then I go to the "services" tab and remove all non-Microsoft services. Once you are done cleaning spyware from your computer you will want to come back to msconfig and enable those things that you really want to run, such as your antivirus software.

Meet HijackThis

HijackThis is a freeware tool that is similar to msconfig but is much more powerful. You can download a copy of it from the spyware removal guide site. When you run HijackThis and do a scan, it shows you all the potential items in your registry that could be spyware. This includes startup entries, BHO, services, and other tricks that spyware uses to infect your computer. It works best if you run HijackThis in safe mode. To get to safe mode press 'F8' while your computer is booting up. When using HijackThis follow the rule, "If you don't know what it is, get rid of it." Everything listed in HijackThis is optional and not necessary for your computer to function so you can remove all the entris and you computer will still work. Sometimes, very cleaver spyware will still appear in a scan after HijackThis removes it. If this is the case, boot into safe mode and manually delete the file that HijackThis lists alongside the registry entry. Once you have HijackThis showing no unknown entries in a scan, you have successfully cleaned your computer and can run msconfig again to enable those things that you really want to have running, such as antivirus software.