I have a little question about malware, registry, and internet. By the way I’m using Vista, but if u give suggestion for xp too, it would be great. ^^

1. How can I lock my registry so that programs (especially malwares) cannot write a value there without my permission?

2. If I backed up my clean registry, and restore it when my computer infected by a malware, can it render the malware unfunctionable?

3. Which key inside the registry that mostly infected by malware?

4. How can a malware starts up automaticly other than write a value to "HKLM/…/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run"?

5. If I use the limited account, does it prevent the malware to write the value into the registry? How?

6. Can I infected by malware by just browsing the internet? How can I prevent it?

7. I’ve heard that a malware is infecting through media player classic and video codec. is it true? How can i prevent it?

Thank you so much. I’m sorry for my messy english. LOL.
For DAVID:

5. Why a malware able to infect my computer then? I haven’t recieved any notification about my registry. Is it possible that a virus doesn’t write or modify a value on a registry?

6. If I am not download anything, how the malware infect me? (this is the part i have been very curious since a long long time ago. LOL)

7. Is antivirus that reliable? Why mine never works? It’s always bypassed.

btw i used AVG Free and MCAFEE Comercial. Is kaspersky FREE good? What’s the diffrence between the comercial one?

Once again, thank you so much. ^^

I just want to clean my computer off so it will generally run faster. All the programs I do not use anymore I want totally gone, and I find when I uninstall things from the control panel, the files and folders are still in my Program Files folder. I know to perform defrag, error checking, and virus scans, but since my C drive is getting full, I need to clear a bunch of stuff off so its like semi-new and runs faster. Any suggestion on how I should do this?

i currently have a problem with my windows vista, and as a suggestion in from the microsoft community informed me that i should try repairing it by using a back up disk of windows, but my windows software was pre-installed , so i dont actually have a back up CD. add the fact that windows home premium doesnt support the whole PC back up function. do i really need to get a new OS? or can i download a clean version of it somewhere, without necessarily pirating one. the suggestion mentioned something like "performing a repair installation or an in-place upgrade"

here’s the link to the suggestion for the repair, if anyone has a better suggestion or a way to help me do the suggestion, by all means reply. hehe..thanks in advance 😀

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistaappearance/thread/d3a771cd-52a7-4a06-9c71-37beeaf77707

I use a wonderful program called CCleaner for file cleanup but have been warned not to use it b/c it also cleans registers. I have the XP operating system. Shall I discontinue its use? I do not want to use two separate programs: one for file clean up and one for registry clean up.

Please give me your best suggestion for an effective way to clean my PC, and any personal cases where you’ve encountered problems using CCleaner.
Thank you.

I do not hear Windows startup or exit sounds, and have tried nearly everything to get them back. One suggestion I found was this:

Find HKEY_CURRENT_USER and click on it, then delete the entry that says (Default) REG_SZ, it will be replaced with (Default) REG_SZ (value not set) which will restore the startup and exit sounds.
Does anyone know if this will work? Will deleting this registry entry get me into trouble?
Thanks for the help.