Get a detailed diagnostic report on your computer with HijackThis

Fixing the changes made by malicious software can be a tricky business, but initially you have to discover exactly what was changed in the first place. HijackThis is a helpful tool that will create a report of suspicious changes and can be used to reverse them.

There is no installation. Just run the downloaded file to get started.

The main menu shows all of the different tools in HijackThis. The first option is to run a system scan and save the results in a text file. The option below just runs the scan but there isn't much point in not saving the results.

The scan doesn't take long, even on a computer that has seen a lot of changes such as our test machine. All the changes made to the Registry and settings are shown with a simple code identifying the type of change.

Changes can range from a new home page for Internet Explorer or search engines in other browsers. A full list of the codes and their meanings can be found by clicking on the Info button.

More details about changes can be found by clicking on them and then the Info on selected item button.

The Analyze This button takes you to the HijackThis forum hosted by TrendMicro to share the results of the scan and to look for advice. A HijackThis report is often requested on our own forums.

HijackThis can be used to reverse the changes it finds. Select items using the check boxes and click on the Fix checked button. We would echo the warnings in HijackThis that you should only do this if you know exactly what the change will do.

While the results may not make a lot of sense when they first appear, this is a valuable tool for getting help with computer problems as it gives the experts the information they need.