A worm is a type of virus which replicates itself to various places on your computer or to different computers on the same network. It can access your computer through any loopholes in your antivirus program and gets transferred to other computers through file sharing programs, websites, and shared devices. It harms your computer, deletes important files, and steals information. To know whether you are infected by a worm or not, recall that you face unannounced reboots and unnecessarily slow speed of your computer. Make it high priority task to remove a worm from your computer.

How to remove a worm without installing antivirus software?

As with other virus’s types, first thing to be done before you remove a worm is to disable “system restore” and delete all restore points. It is necessary because restoring your computer anytime to a pre set restore point might bring back the worm as well. To do this:

Go to Start> Control panel> System and security> System> System protection. When the window opens, click on “configure” and check “Turn off system protection.” Click OK.

Now, you must use Windows default tool for removing malware known as “Windows defender” in Windows 7. It is not a substitute for a more-effective antivirus program but at least it can give you an idea. Especially if the worm is not letting you download programs, you may do this as a first way to go.

Keep in mind that the worm may not allow you to open programs on your computer, so restart the computer and as soon as you see the black screen, press F2. It will prompt you to press F8 to go to advanced options. Press F8 and go to “safe mode” or “safe mode with networking” in case you need internet. Now follow these simple steps:

1. Click the windows icon on the bottom left corner of your screen. In the search box, type “windows defender.” You can use terms like “windows protection tool”, “windows spyware protection” or “scan for spyware” to find windows in-built tool in other versions.

2. As soon as you will open it, it will start scanning your computer.

3. Wait for it to be completed. Please do not cancel. It will give you the report of all the worms in your system and will instruct you on what operations can you perform on them.