when i had the virus and used the computer at my university, my laptop's mac address was block from the school's network. i called in to get access back, and they told me to reinstall windows to be sure the virus is gone. i told them that my anti-virus software dectected the virus and removed it already. they said that eventhough the virus is remove, it still leaves a backdoor for other virus to easily get into your computer. so my question is how safe is my computer now that anti-virus removed the virus? is it really necessary that i should reformat my system?
thanks.

What virus was it and what anti-virus software did you use to clean it?

MSU

What MSU said plus if the University's scanning is so thorough so as to identify a virus on your machine, why not just tell them you re-installed Windows and let their scanning system do its thing. If you connect successfully, you're clean. If not, then you can decide what to do.

Jim.

Ask the fool what he has been smoking? HE is decribing a trojan trace.

Under Construction

i've gotten connection back. however, next time i get a virus again, they'll charge me before giving access to the network. i use McAffee and don't remember what virus it was. in general, once a virus is remove, the computer is generally safe right?

I would presume that if the virus was truly removed, your computer would be "safe", at least from the virus that was removed.

However, if you are running XP or ME, the virus could still be present in System Restore (SR). It won't cause you any problems unless you restore SR to a time when the virus was virulent.

Temporarily disable SR to clear it out, and then enable it again for protection.

Jim.

The best place there is to catch a virus is on a college or university network. The students pass them around like potato chips because they visit all the best places to get infected. If you have a good, up to date anti-virus program, keep the real time protection always active, and use a little common sense in using the computer, you should not have much to worry about.

Shelly

A friend's son and his laptop created havoc at his college for a day. He was messing with games downloaded from places that he now knows not to go. The college didn't charge him for the mess, but they insisted that he reformat before he was given access to the network. And a warning that it had best not happen again.

Nightly Reader

avast, avg are two good free anti virus proggies, avast finds virus as you enter the site or try to download.

Under Construction