Malware infections continue to be a big problem, especially in the most popular operating systems, as these types of threats suffer the most. Removing persistent viruses can be quite complicated in Windows, but did you know that Microsoft Defender Antivirus has a very useful tool that can help you?

Microsoft Defender Antivirus is the security solution that comes included completely free of charge with Windows 10 and Windows 11 and can help us remove many types of viruses, even some considered very dangerous. It is quite effective and works so well that unless we are real “cafeteria” users using our PCs, we won’t need to buy a third-party antivirus.

If you made a mistake or misused your computer and got infected a very hard virus that you cannot remove Don’t worry, I’ll explain how you can get rid of it using the security solution built into Windows 10 and Windows 11. Follow all the steps you’ll see below in order to make it work properly.

How to remove viruses in Windows when normal scanning does not work

If you have already performed a regular scan with Microsoft Defender Antivirus and it did not work, enter the mentioned application, click on “Antivirus and threat protection” and in the central part, click on “Scan options” as you can see in the attached image. Once inside, you’ll see four different options:

1. quick testwhich is the one you probably used in the first analysis that didn’t work.
2. Complete exam, which performs a deeper scan and can take up to an hour.
3. Personalized examwhich allows you to choose which files and locations to scan.
4. Microsoft Defender Antivirus (offline)which performs offline analysis and is recommended for dealing with the most difficult viruses to remove.

You must choose option four, offline analysis. Let the computer work, you will see the system reboot and load the “Windows Recovery Environment”, which is the Windows recovery environment. Calm down because you won’t have to do anything The analysis will continue in an automated way and during it an attempt will be made to remove all “hard” viruses found.

This process usually takes time between 10 and 15 minutesand once it’s finished, your computer will automatically restart and take you directly to Windows 10 or Windows 11 to use your computer normally.

To see the test results, just go back to “Antivirus and threat protection” and click on “History of Conservation”. If nothing appears, it’s because this analysis didn’t find any threats during the test.

AI generated cover image.