0
where do spyware commonly stay on your computer. what locations
0
where do spyware commonly stay on your computer. what locations
2
System32, and your personal directories (i.e. Documents and Settings\you\*
)
But really they can be anywhere.
3
Spyware on windows has no reason to be in a specific file, apart from maybe in a directory in your path variable. Though really it wouldn't matter where it was, so it could just make a directory where ever it wanted and do what it wanted from there. I agree to use an application, since these are especially designed and usually invest a lot of money to make ways to locate them. Even if you do delete a folder it's in, it may have spawned lots of files with copies in or changed the registry which would be very difficult to manually find problems in
1
Anywhere. If they stuck to certain locations, they'd be easy to find and remove. Many even randomly generate a location on each computer - it might be C:\Windows\apweorpu.exe
on one computer, and C:\Windows\System\qpoxzweor.exe
on another.
Don't rely on manually hunting them down on the filesystem. Use the spyware detection apps out there - and more than one, if you can.
1
IF there were a specific location where spyware lives, anti-spyware software would easily be able to prevent and remove it. Instead, spyware tends to replace existing files at various places in the system.
0
Wherever you don't look.
(Use a system scanner, or reformat to be sure...)