In rare cases, removing spyware can break your computer’s ability to connect to the network. We offer a utility to fix this condition at Software Central called WinsockFix.exe. Don’t use it, unless you have used Ad-Aware SE or Spybot S&D or some other anti-spyware utility to remove spyware and immediately lost your network connectivity. Meanwhile, it is good to download this utility before you try to remove spyware, since you can’t download it if you lose network connectivity.

Another thing to be cautious about is that software that depends upon spyware to operate, like so-called “free” music download software will often neither function nor uninstall if the spyware is removed before the music sharing software is uninstalled. You should remove the music sharing software (like kazaa or imesh) before you remove the spyware.

If you are reluctant to remove music sharing software, consider that by choosing to remove it or not, you are choosing between having a computer or having a jukebox, since the spyware will likely eventually make it useless as a computer.

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