Here's a somewhat more polite response than your comment deserved:

No, when I said "cleanup", I meant, "cleanup".

When a client -- whether individual or business -- gets infected, what they want is their computer back to exactly the way it was before the infection, with as little hassle as possible, preferably without a lot of expense.

They often do not have all of the installation media for every program on their computer, even the ones that they rely on. They often do not have the registration information for software that we could legitimately download for them, even though they have a fully legitimate copy.

If they are a new client for us, they probably do not have any backup system at all. If they do have a backup system, there are 50-50 odds that it isn't working and they don't know it.

Nor do they typically want to have us over multiple times to deal with one configuration issue after another. People are surprisingly sensitive to their computer setups.

Nor do they know (or have) all of their passwords for everything. Reinstalling Microsoft Outlook from scratch, for example, and restoring their Outlook data file, will still make Outlook require their email account password again.

We do an extensive series of automated offline scans of the hard drive after storing a backup of it, and then we proceed with manual troubleshooting from there. We examine key areas of the Windows registry for any signs of infection; we use other trusted tools to check running processes; we check for unexplained network activity; we check for modified files; we check for overall system performance. We look into what type of malware was on the system and whether the client might need to change their credit card, banking, or account information anywhere. The system doesn't leave the shop until we are confident that it is clean. After that, we become proactive: we explain the importance of backups, good antivirus software, and a good web browser with AB+. Almost every system leaves the shop with our recommendations in place.

In the four years that I've owned this business, working with clients in three counties, I have had exactly three incidences of reinfection. Since we work hard to develop long-term relationships with our clients, I have reason to believe that our approach works. Two of the cases were caused by Avira, a product we had previously recommended, repeatedly failing to update, combined with insistence on the client's end with using Internet Explorer. In the third, most recent case, it was likely caused by an employee of the client's doing something they shouldn't have, and since they are a brand new client, we've not yet been able to work with them to disable web browsing on the registers and set up a dedicated web station.

I am fully aware of the theoretical risks of choosing anything other than a wipe and reinstall. I am constantly re-evaluating our approach, and there will probably be a day when I will reluctantly tell people that we really have no choice other than to start them over from scratch.

But that hasn't happened yet, and when it does happen, I will have to tell people that all of their Word, Excel, and PDF documents are lost too, because those documents may themselves be infected and we won't be able to guarantee that antivirus software will catch it.

I'd be willing to bet that we'll see more advanced ransomware before we'll see that, though.

Our job is to be a powerful buffer between people who just want to get on with their lives, and the various headaches associated with technology. If we accept an infected system from someone and hand it back to them with a fresh copy of Windows and nothing more to go with it than a shrug, then we are not doing our job. Likewise, if we hand a system back to someone with a password-stealing trojan still left on it which later compromises their E*Trade account, then we are not doing our job. I got started in this business partly because of the number of people I met who were utterly frustrated with the arrogance, self-righteousness, dispassion, and ultimate uselessness of other tech companies. I wanted to do something different: build a tech company that focused on people.

Thanks and good night,

- Rob.