Safe Mode??

Giles

What is the purpose of running an anti virus or malwarebytes in safe mode?

rossfingal

Giles -
Some "Malware" does not run in "Safe Mode" - it's been written to run
when the operating system starts in "Normal" mode.
(Unfortunately, some of that "stuff" runs whenever it wants).
Is there some reason you're concerned about running in "Safe Mode"?

rossfingal

DangerMouse

A lot of the malware is written to hide when windows loads completely so it cannot be seen with a normal scan.
Safe mode scans can find some that hide this way.

DM

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Giles

No--I have read, on different forums, about running in safe mode and I just wondered if it worked better.

rossfingal

Try to run anti-malware (anti-virus, trojan, etc...) tools in "Normal Mode" -
the next attempt would probably, be "Safe Mode" -
the next attempt would be "specialized" tools, run with the
guidance of someone trained to utilize them.

rossfingal

Synon

Giles,
Most advanced malware and viruses will disable antivirus or malware removing tools in "normal mode" or will make a computer unusable.

Starting in "Safe Mode" loads only essential Windows files and processes and nothing else (not even antivirus). The idea is that nothing is loaded unless you tell it to, so a virus or piece of malware won't load and you can manually run an antivirus scan to remove it. This isn't always the case, but it's an effective way of removing a virus or malware that can't be removed in normal mode.

Tizzer

I'm no geek, but around a month ago my AV found a "baddie" during a routine normal mode scan. It said it couldn't get rid of it, but gave the file location.
Malwarebytes missed it in normal mode also.
Booted into Safe mode under Admin. and manually plucked the bad file.

whiskers

This is the reason. When malware loads, it tries to be smart and hides/reinstalls itself, disables anti-virus, prevents the antivirus from deleting it, etc. In safe mode, you can delete it and it shouldn't be able to reinstall itself.