Life after a computer virus?

I am not an expert. My only knowlege that I have is that I have a similar problem before. The solution as recommended by a friend of mine was to first back up some documents and links which I knew they were free from any virus,etc, Then wipe clean the whole hard disk. then reinstalled window 7 Yes there is some work to do but it is not so difficult. Now my laptop computer is very fast. I am planning to do the same thing every year. But you are going to get the proper information from other users my is only a suggestion