If your computer is infected with malware, then you can use the free McAfee Stinger to detect and remove the most prevalent malware from your computer. Stinger is a standalone utility that can be used to detect and remove specific viruses. It is not a substitute for a full antivirus product, but it can be used to remove in-the-wild malware from an infected system.
You can download the McAfee Stinger utility from the McAfee free tools website. The download is a standalone portable tool available in form of a EXE file. The downloads are available for both the 32-bit and 64-bit Windows operating systems separately. The file name is in the form stinger32.exe for the 32-bit version and stinger64.exe for the 64-bit version. McAfee Stinger is updated every few days to include the virus definitions for the latest malware so you should always download the latest version from the internet.
To run the McAfee Stinger, simply double-click on the downloaded file (in our case stinger64.exe) to execute it. If you are running the computer in the standard user mode, you would get the UAC prompt to give administrator privileges to this program. Choose Yes to continue. After you agree to McAfee Stinger license agreement, the main window of the McAfee Stinger would be shown. The main user interface has a big dark red button labeled Scan that you have to click to start the scanning of your system.
Most of the users do not need any customization, but if you want to customize the scan and choose which folders or drives are to be scanned, then you can click on the Customize my scan under the the Scan button and then select any folder(s) or drive(s) that you want it to scan. If you do not customize the scan, then McAfee Stinger will scan your entire system including all your hard disks.
You can also choose which how the scan is performed and which portions of Windows are searched for the malware. To choose the settings for the scan, you can click on the Advanced → Settings in the top-right menu, which would open the Settings window for McAfee Stinger. In this settings window, you can choose scan targets like registry, boot sectors of partitions, rootkits, running processes etc. You can choose if scanning should be done inside sub-folders and inside packed archives. You can also select what to do when malware is found (delete, repair, rename etc.). You can change settings for the GTI (Global Threat Intelligence) which is a cloud-based threat intelligence service that requires the Internet and can tell the reputation of a file over the McAfee GTI cloud network.
Most of the users would not require any modifications in the default settings. After changing the settings, you can close the settings window by clicking on the Save button. Clicking on the Scan button would start the scanning process. The scanning process will take some time to complete. During the scanning if Stinger finds a malware, it would automatically repair it (or delete it). At the end of the scanning, it will show you a summary of how many items (files, registry keys, processes etc.) were scanned, how many infected objects were found and how many were cleaned.
McAfee Stinger incorporates the next generation GTI (global threat intelligence) technology which detects more malware than Stinger would detect by using the virus definitions alone. It can scan various areas of your Windows system like the processes, registry, files and boot-sectors. It is an indispensible tool to help you recover from malware infection. You have to note that the Stinger is not a replacement for a full blown antivirus software and can remove only a select few of latest malware. You should install a complete antivirus software after you have used Stinger to clean your system.
You can download McAfee Stinger from http://www.mcafee.com/us/downloads/.