• Destruction of personal property 11/16/05
• Watch your bank 11/9/05
• Nasty ads from a nasty program 11/2/05
• The unwilling spam king 10/26/05
• A Better Internet? Not really. 10/19/05
• Putting the BargainBuddy dog to sleep 10/12/05
• P2P files: you can't trust 'em 10/5/05
• Not even repair shops are safe 9/28/05
• Sharing your PC can be hazardous to its health 9/21/05
• Wolves in sheep's clothing 9/14/05

Download.com users are no strangers to the frightening world of spyware. Each week, we'll share a new reader tale of spyware woe, so check back frequently for each terrifying episode.

How a virutal PC can save your hide

My friend's PC was pretty much shot. Even after I ran many antispyware programs, the desktop had 20 icons that would come back every time I deleted them, I couldn't change the wallpaper, and tabs were missing. After I thoroughly cleaned the system, I installed Service Pack 2 (which he didn't have). It took about two more days to get everything cleaned up--what a mess spyware is.

I have a cure for it on my home system. I use VMware and have XP Pro installed, along with Norton AntiVirus, antispyware programs, and a firewall. I take a system snapshot and just browse the Web using that. Once a month, I restore the older snapshot, update all my programs, create a new snapshot, and continue surfing the Web in VMware. That way, the Internet never touches my main Windows OS. If I get something nasty, I just restore VMware to a previously clean state and call it a day. This cuts down on the hassle of fighting applications that shouldn't be on my PC in the first place.

Thank you VMware!

--Joel
Virginia, U.S.A.

Although our Spyware Horror Stories feature is definitely meant to entertain, it's also here for educational purposes. The anecdote about your friend's computer does sound nasty, and you bring up an excellent point: virtual-PC software such as VMware is a great way to ensure you don't get caught up in an extended battle with spyware.

Although a number of virtual-PC-type products are on the market, we actually prefer VMware ourselves. To test and review antispyware programs, our editorial staff naturally has to install spyware on test PCs. However, instead of putting malicious programs on our "actual" computers, we install them on the virtual machine VMware creates. As you point out, this keeps threats from getting close to a computer's operating system. Also, even if spyware hoses important areas of your virtual system, VMware lets you quickly return to a clean machine in the manner you described above. This method also can help users test antispyware programs for false positives, detected threats that don't actually exist. In any case, we're glad you brought this up; even though a virtual machine can sometimes slow down less-powerful PCs, we think decreased performance is still favorable to reformatting your hard drive or rebuilding your machine.

--Download.com editors

Got your own spyware horror story you'd like to share? Let us hear it.