the virus and what action was taken. If You're Not Running an Antivirus If you're not running an antivirus and your computer has become slow and unreliable, it's possible that you have a virus. This can also occur if you're running an antivirus with out-of-date virus definitions. If you don't have an antivirus installed, you should try to install one immediately. There are a variety of free antivirus products you can download, including Microsoft Security Essentials . The antivirus should ideally be able to clean up the viruses and fix your problems after you install it. If the antivirus can't fix the infections on your system, read the section below on dealing with more troublesome infections. If You Think Your Antivirus Isn't Catching A Virus If you already have an antivirus program installed but you think you may have viruses it isn't detecting, you can get a second opinion from another antivirus product. A variety of antivirus providers make one-time scanning tools available -- for example, the ESET Online Scanner . These programs will download to your computer and do a quick scan without a long installation process. You can't have multiple antivirus products installed at the same time, so this allows you to scan with another antivirus without going through the hassle of uninstalling your current antivirus. If the scanner alerts you to a problem, you'll want to remove the viruses with the scanning tool. If you had a virus, your current antivirus may not be up to the