Fake Microsoft

Hi, a friend of mine contacted me and brought her PC around to me to try and fix it.
To cut the story short one of her boys 11 years old answered the phone to a gentleman (not in my book) claiming to be from Microsoft and telling him their PC has a Virus and he will remove it, you know the rest.
I have tried with online virus removal, no joy, I tried to do a System Restore, plenty of restore points but the restore will not complete.
So I suggested to back up what had not been backed up, a fair amount of stuff music photos had already been backed up, and format the drive and start from scratch.
Any suggestions here, to clean without the last option of Formatting.
Advice will be gratefully appreciated.
hawk22

 

I don't think I know what you are talking about Ari.
I simply wanted to know if this nasty software can be removed with anti Virus software, or if it needs a Format.

I'll find the answer I am looking for elsewhere.