Adware toolbar infecting ALL WinXP windows, not just IE

[Bullman]

Hi
I have just seen a very sick home PC that was left vulnerable to all
sorts of malware/virus/trojan infections from the internet and was
amazed to see adware toolbars even infecting regular WinXP windows
like the Control Panel window. I am of course familair with malware
toolabrs infecting internet browsers but never non-browser system
windows.

Has anyone heard of this before or know the name of any virus/trojan/
malware etc that can infect non-browser system windows like this? Its
been hard searching for one that can on Google.

Thanks

Bull

 

[Poprivet]

Hi
I have just seen a very sick home PC that was left vulnerable to all
sorts of malware/virus/trojan infections from the internet and was
amazed to see adware toolbars even infecting regular WinXP windows
like the Control Panel window. I am of course familair with malware
toolabrs infecting internet browsers but never non-browser system
windows.

Has anyone heard of this before or know the name of any virus/trojan/
malware etc that can infect non-browser system windows like this? Its
been hard searching for one that can on Google.

Thanks

Bull

First you have to say what you've already done to try to fix this problem; I
don't like "done that" responses. And yes, that's typical of an infected
machine.

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Bullman" <[email protected]>

| Hi
| I have just seen a very sick home PC that was left vulnerable to all
| sorts of malware/virus/trojan infections from the internet and was
| amazed to see adware toolbars even infecting regular WinXP windows
| like the Control Panel window. I am of course familair with malware
| toolabrs infecting internet browsers but never non-browser system
| windows.
|
| Has anyone heard of this before or know the name of any virus/trojan/
| malware etc that can infect non-browser system windows like this? Its
| been hard searching for one that can on Google.
|
| Thanks
|
| Bull

There are many forms of non-viral malaware that will do this.

 

[smlunatick]

Hi
I have just seen a very sick home PC that was left vulnerable to all
sorts of malware/virus/trojan infections from the internet and was
amazed to see adware toolbars even infecting regular WinXP windows
like the Control Panel window. I am of course familair with malware
toolabrs infecting internet browsers but never non-browser system
windows.

Has anyone heard of this before or know the name of any virus/trojan/
malware etc that can infect non-browser system windows like this? Its
been hard searching for one that can on Google.

Thanks

Bull

You need to know that as of Windows XP, Microsoft has made their
Internet browser (Internet Explorer) the "defacto" Windows Explorer
window.

 

[Rock]

Hi
I have just seen a very sick home PC that was left vulnerable to all
sorts of malware/virus/trojan infections from the internet and was
amazed to see adware toolbars even infecting regular WinXP windows
like the Control Panel window. I am of course familair with malware
toolabrs infecting internet browsers but never non-browser system
windows.

Has anyone heard of this before or know the name of any virus/trojan/
malware etc that can infect non-browser system windows like this? Its
been hard searching for one that can on Google.

Reinstall XP clean. Delete all partitions, then create one for XP, format
and install. Don't bother trying to fix it.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

 

[Bullman]

OK. Thanks for the advice.

This PC was so badly infected it wouldn't even allow you to go to the
real www.google.com. It would redirect you to fake Google pages and
give bogus search results on anything you searched for. I did attempt
to clean up the PC however but the PC ended up booting to WinXP but no
toolbars or desktop shortcuts or even right click functionality
worked. All you had was the desktop background and the mouse.

Does anyone know the name of a virus/malware etc that can hijack non-
browser windows like it did on this PC?

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Bullman" <[email protected]>

| OK. Thanks for the advice.
|
| This PC was so badly infected it wouldn't even allow you to go to the
| real www.google.com. It would redirect you to fake Google pages and
| give bogus search results on anything you searched for. I did attempt
| to clean up the PC however but the PC ended up booting to WinXP but no
| toolbars or desktop shortcuts or even right click functionality
| worked. All you had was the desktop background and the mouse.
|
| Does anyone know the name of a virus/malware etc that can hijack non-
| browser windows like it did on this PC?

You supplied too little information to supply a name.