If you discover that your computer is harboring a virus, don’t despair — it should be perfectly possible to remove it and get things back to normal. Be warned, though, it may take a little time.

Computer security technologists are racing to find ways to block ever-more complex computer worms and viruses that burrow into computers -- usually via e-mail -- and wreak havoc on network systems.

This will likely detect the virus infecting your computer and remove it. If the scan fails, you may wish to remove it manually by using the Windows Registry or launching your activity monitor on a ...

Here's the deal: virus removal tools aren't magic. If you ran a virus scan, targeted the problems, but still feel your computer isn't notably faster, then you can bet it's the hardware.