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[Naked Snake]

If a PC running an old version of Windows XP was infected with some virus, tons of spyware and trojans... Then at some point it was totally "cleaned" and secured (i.e. installing latest virus definitions and doing a full system scan & repair + Windows Service Pack 2 & all security patches + different anti-spyware programs to remove all spyware)... Would doing that really fix any and all security-related damages done? Or is a format and fresh OS install required to make sure no holes/ports were left open for attacks?

 

[DarienA]

Any? Yes.

All? Who can tell? No spyware detector is 100% yet... running 2-4 of the best one helps, but you're still IMO not going to get 100% cleanliness... but you'll get close.

BTW go to a third party for your firewall software.. XP's has improved... but it's still not as best as the top flight ones like ZoneAlarm, etc...

 

[Fatalah]

Let's say you've run every adaware, spybot, microsoft antispyware program you can.

Your registry is still bound to look funky.

A clean install of XP will make you feel cleaner than Jerry Seinfeld.