In an effort to increase a little further the effectiveness of the highly popular TechSpot’s 8 steps against malware http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic58138.html I wish to make the following comment.

Sequence of Steps for Security

The sequence of steps as presented has the weakness that, by disabling all real time protection early on while still connected to the internet, one runs the risk of catching malware while doing the steps against it! In particular, scanning with all those tools can take a very long time. Even if the sites visited are safe and all other browser tabs are closed, there are hackers who constantly scan ports and inject malware through system and browser security holes. Furthermore, there may be a residing Trojan/backdoor awaiting the turning off of the firewall for communicating with base. However small, these risks are unnecessary and can be easily avoided.

Consequently, I propose that Step 3, i.e. disabling all protection, should come later, after downloading and updating all tools involved, and disconnecting from the internet. Thus, I suggest the following sequence:

• Download and update all tools required. Also check Java.
• Disconnect from the internet.
• Disable all protection.
• Run the tools and save the logs.
• Re-enable all protection, including any of the new tools required.
• Re-connect to the internet and post results, attaching the logs.

I see your point
According to the above the real time disable is due to the "fixes" not the initial downloading and updating.

The only issue is that each process would be required to be started then updated, then possibly closed (to do the same for the other program), then real time disabled, then the Spyware program re-started and finally run. Hmm

My verdict, too confusing. But these are just my thoughts. Plus the way it is set out presently seems to be working anyway.