Cannot remove adware

G

Guest

I am a windows XP professional user. I have what I believe to be adware running on my PC. It is an advertisement for a product that promises to "keep my computer safe," and it is running on top of my wallpaper on my desktop, so that only a sliver of the wallpaper is visible at the bottom of the screen. I have tried running both add aware and spybot, and I have also tried scanning for viruses. Though add aware and spybot both found some suspicios programs (which I removed) the add continues to run on my desktop. Also, I cannot run Symantec antivirus while operating in normal mode. It will, however, run in safe mode. I am at the end of my rope and am about to give up and wipe my PC. Can someone please help me?
 
D

Doug Knox MS-MVP

Right click the Desktop, select Properties, Desktop, Customize Desktop, Web tab and uncheck any Web content that's enabled.
 
G

Guest

Thank you so much for your help! The ad is gone now. However, Symantec antivirus is still not working properly-every time I try to run a scan, it stops responding. Also, in the task manager, it reports that anywhere between 50-100 percent of my cpu resources are being used. Is it possible that there is still a bit of hostile programming floating around on my system? If so, what should I do to get rid of it?
 
D

Doug Knox MS-MVP

K

K. Munch

I have this same problem. My desktop is completely taken
over by a huge ad for an "anti-spyware" software. I will
try the suggestion mentioned in the previous message. On
top of that, however, my AOL will not work. When I try to
open it, a box pops up saying that my computer has to be
restarted in order for AOL to run, but of course, when I
do restart my machine, the same box pops up again.
Does anyone think that the removal of the adware will
clear this situation up, or will I have to reload AOL?
Thanks.
-----Original Message-----
Right click the Desktop, select Properties, Desktop,
Customize Desktop, Web tab and uncheck any Web content
that's enabled.
--
Doug Knox, MS-MVP Windows Media Center\Windows Powered Smart Display
Win 95/98/Me/XP Tweaks and Fixes
http://www.dougknox.com
--------------------------------
Per user Group Policy Restrictions for XP Home and XP Pro
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_securityconsole.htm
--------------------------------
Please reply only to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
Unsolicited e-mail is not answered.

"KP5501" <[email protected]> wrote in
message (e-mail address removed)...believe to be adware running on my PC. It is an
advertisement for a product that promises to "keep my
computer safe," and it is running on top of my wallpaper
on my desktop, so that only a sliver of the wallpaper is
visible at the bottom of the screen. I have tried running
both add aware and spybot, and I have also tried scanning
for viruses. Though add aware and spybot both found some
suspicios programs (which I removed) the add continues to
run on my desktop. Also, I cannot run Symantec antivirus
while operating in normal mode. It will, however, run in
safe mode. I am at the end of my rope and am about to
give up and wipe my PC. Can someone please help me?
 
K

K. Munch

The adware image has turned my entire desktop into one big
html file, so I can't get the usual drop down "properties"
menu when I right-click. What else can I do to remove
this from my desktop?
Thanks.
-----Original Message-----
Right click the Desktop, select Properties, Desktop,
Customize Desktop, Web tab and uncheck any Web content
that's enabled.
--
Doug Knox, MS-MVP Windows Media Center\Windows Powered Smart Display
Win 95/98/Me/XP Tweaks and Fixes
http://www.dougknox.com
--------------------------------
Per user Group Policy Restrictions for XP Home and XP Pro
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_securityconsole.htm
--------------------------------
Please reply only to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
Unsolicited e-mail is not answered.

"KP5501" <[email protected]> wrote in
message (e-mail address removed)...believe to be adware running on my PC. It is an
advertisement for a product that promises to "keep my
computer safe," and it is running on top of my wallpaper
on my desktop, so that only a sliver of the wallpaper is
visible at the bottom of the screen. I have tried running
both add aware and spybot, and I have also tried scanning
for viruses. Though add aware and spybot both found some
suspicios programs (which I removed) the add continues to
run on my desktop. Also, I cannot run Symantec antivirus
while operating in normal mode. It will, however, run in
safe mode. I am at the end of my rope and am about to
give up and wipe my PC. Can someone please help me?
 
D

Doug Knox MS-MVP

Removing the Adware may solve your problems, it may not. It certainly will not hurt to remove it.
 
J

Jeffrey Schwartz

The adware image has turned my entire desktop into one big
html file, so I can't get the usual drop down "properties"
menu when I right-click. What else can I do to remove
this from my desktop?
Thanks.
Customize Desktop, Web tab and uncheck any Web content
that's enabled.

Can you get to the start button, then Control Panel -> Display then
select Desktop -> Customize.

Jeff
 
G

Guest

Dear GOD, my computer is infested. I've used: Panda ActiveScan, Norton AntiVirus, Spybot, and Ad-aware, but no matter what I try the damn popups and changed homepage keep showing up. Ad-aware fixes the problem for 2 minutes, tops. After 2 minutes the home page is changed back to some damn unwanted search engine that won't give me an URL, it says "aboutblank" at the top. Then i get constant popups on how my PC is infected with spyware. HijackThis didn't seem to work either. If I sent someone my HijackThis log of suspicious items, can anybody specify what to quarantine and delete? I'm so sick of this, my CPU is always running at 70%+, and I can't do anything on my PC without disconnecting it from Road Runner. Help? Please?
 
D

Doug Knox MS-MVP

In addition to cleaning your system, Spybot has a resident "immunization" module. This will update itself automatically, if you allow it to, and "immunize" your system from the known threats. Anything "suspicious", will be reported and you'll be prompted whether or not to allow the change to be made.

Often, its best to run cleaning tools, such as AdAware, SpyBot and your AV software in Safe Mode. This should prevent malware and virus's from being loaded at startup.
 
G

Guest

Hooy said:
Dear GOD, my computer is infested. I've used: Panda ActiveScan, Norton AntiVirus, Spybot, and Ad-aware, but no matter what I try the damn popups and changed homepage keep showing up. Ad-aware fixes the problem for 2 minutes, tops. After 2 minutes the home page is changed back to some damn unwanted search engine that won't give me an URL, it says "aboutblank" at the top. Then i get constant popups on how my PC is infected with spyware. HijackThis didn't seem to work either. If I sent someone my HijackThis log of suspicious items, can anybody specify what to quarantine and delete? I'm so sick of this, my CPU is always running at 70%+, and I can't do anything on my PC without disconnecting it from Road Runner. Help? Please?

.. . .
 
C

Chronic187

I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM WITH MY DESKTOP . . SPYSHERRIFE . . BOLLOX. .
I HAVE TRIED RIGHT CLICK DESKTOP THEN PROPERTIES THEN DESKTOP
CUSTOMIZE . . BUT WHAT DO YOU MEAN . . WEB TAB ? IT ONLY HAS
'GENERAL ' ' ? AND THERE IS NOTHING TO UNCLICK PLEASE HELP ME

(e-mail address removed) please let me know how
 
D

David H. Lipman

From: "Chronic187" <[email protected]>

| I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM WITH MY DESKTOP . . SPYSHERRIFE . . BOLLOX. . .
| I HAVE TRIED RIGHT CLICK DESKTOP THEN PROPERTIES THEN DESKTOP
| CUSTOMIZE . . BUT WHAT DO YOU MEAN . . WEB TAB ? IT ONLY HAS '
| 'GENERAL ' ' ? AND THERE IS NOTHING TO UNCLICK PLEASE HELP ME

First fix that broken "Caps Lock" key !

SpySherriff is a Rogue Anti Syware application !
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

If it is listed on Spyware Warrior it should be avoaided.

To remove adware/spyware start with Ad-aware SE v1.06 and SpyBot Search and Destroy v1.4

I also suggest the following...

Dump the contents of the IE Temporary Internet Folder cache (TIF)
Start --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Internet Options --> Delete Files

Dump the contents of the Mozilla FireFox Cache { if you use FireFox }
Tools --> Options --> Privacy --> Cache --> Clear

Download MULTI_AV.EXE from the URL --
http://www.ik-cs.com/programs/virtools/Multi_AV.exe

It is a self-extracting ZIP file that contains the Kixtart Script Interpreter {
http://kixtart.org Kixtart is CareWare } two batch files, four Kixtart scripts, one Link
(.LNK) file, this PDF instruction file and two utilities; UNZIP.EXE and WGET.EXE. It will
simplify the process of using up to 3 different Anti Virus Command Line Scanners to remove
viruses and various other malware.

C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT -- { or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS}
This will bring up the initial menu of choices and should be executed in Normal Mode. This
way all the components can be downloaded from each AV vendor’s web site.
On Win9x/ME the choices are; Trend, McAfee, Exit the menu and Reboot the PC
On NT4, Win2k, WinXP and Win2003 Server the choices are; Sophos, Trend, McAfee, Exit the
menu and Reboot the PC.

You can choose to go to each menu item and just download the needed files or you can
download the files and perform a scan in Normal Mode. Once you have downloaded the files
needed for each scanner you want to use, you should reboot the PC into Safe Mode [F8 key
during boot] and re-run the menu again and choose which scanner you want to run in Safe
Mode. It is suggested to run the scanners in both Safe Mode and Normal Mode.

When the menu is displayed hitting 'H' or 'h' will bring up a more comprehensive PDF help
file.

To use this utility, perform the following...
Execute; Multi_AV.exe { Note: You must use the default folder C:\AV-CLS }
Choose; Unzip
Choose; Close

Execute; C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT
{ or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS }

NOTE: You may have to disable your software FireWall or allow WGET.EXE and/or FTP.EXE to go
through your FireWall to allow them to download the needed AV vendor related files.

* * * Please report back your results * * *
 

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