Coolwebsearch/hijacked/spyware...........Anybody???

[Rob]

Good morning!
I had posted this in the IE newsgroup, but nobody
responded....any takers here?

What is the deal with CWS? It's to the point that I run
shredder several times a day! Also, I run the following:
CWShredder
Hijackthis
Spybot
Ad-aware
.....and I've tried several others. I always update these
ever day, but it doesn't seem to have any impact other
than a few minutes reprieve. Sometimes, I can't even get
into some Microsoft sites as I'm re-directed by this
insidious spyware!

To top it all off, if I run a search on Microsoft's web
site for "CWS" or "Coolwebsearch" - I get no matches or
hits! Is Microsoft hoping if they don't acknowledge this
problem, we'll all assume it's not that big a deal? It's
to the point now that I have to use Opera or Netscape, IE
barely works and, when it does, the pop-ups never stop
and my system grinds to a halt.

Has anyone ever removed this completely, totally, from
their system????

Thanks!
- Rob

 

[Paul Bobrowski]

I've removed it. I was in the same situtation as you where it kept coming
back.

The trick was that you have to delete a registry key and reboot, otherwise
it will come back. Unfortunately I'm not at home so I can't direct you to
the key to delete, but I hope this information will aid in your search. You
can trying searching groups.google.com, I've posted the key in the MS news
groups before, you can try doing a search for CWShredder and my name and
maybe something will come up.

 

[Jerry]

Also make sure you delete the contents of your c:\windows\prefetch
directory. Stuff is in here so windows can load faster. It will rebuild
automatically.