We have been running a forum dedicated to helping you remove malware for a while now. There are quite a few questions as to how to use HJT. Things like creating the log file, backing data up and removing objects that we suggest removing. After seeing guys like MikeBlane walk so many people through these steps I decided I should put together a step by step guide complete with pictures! Pictures say so much more than text ever does.

This guide is based upon HijackThis v1.98.2.

http://www.merijn.org/files/hijackthis.zip
http://www.merijn.org/index.html

1.) We're trying to keep the latest version available for download here. Step #1 is of course to download this file :)

2.) Most of the time people download and extract this file to their desktop. I'm going to tell you NOT to do this! Windows often changes the location of this folder so it is a good idea to extract the files to something like C:\HJT.

3.) After doing that browse to the directory you just created and open the file called HijackThis.exe.

4.) Click Scan and it will scan your system and give you a list. The picture below is a scan of my system. Click on it to get the non thumbnail version.

If you're wondering what the different things such as 04 mean you can either look at the Info box or I have the list later in this article. I will be updating this guide with some various examples as time permits.

5.) After you've clicked on Scan that box will change and say Save Log. If you still see scan then simply run the scan again. From here you will be asked where you would like to save the log file to. Browse to where you want it to be saved and click on save. For me it automatically opened in Notepad. If this does not happen for you then simply browse to where you saved it and open it in notepad.