Can't access Explorer or Control Panel after hijack

[CheshireCat]

Hi
A friend of ours got hijacked by both (Internet Optimizer) Optimizer.exe and
Bargains.exe today. Part of the problem in getting these was loss of access
to windows explorer and Control Panel - you double click on the desktop icon
or menu item, there's a few seconds of hourglass then nothing happens.
Everything slows to a crawl too eg menus appearing/disappearing etc.
We ran Spybot and Adaware to remove the main culprits, but access to
explorer and control panel didn't return.
If you boot into safe mode everything works ok.

Any ideas how to fix this without using a restore point? He's installed
other software since the last point was saved and doesn't want to lose it.

 

[CheshireCat]

We fixed it so Ill post findings for others using archive searches.

After a web search someone suggested that disabling 3rd party browser
extensions may help but it was a coarse fix because it prevented everything.
We believed that Adaware and Spybot had already removed all browser helper
objects but gave it a try anyway. The problem vanished confirming there must
be another unknown bho.
So we downloaded and ran toolbarcop to get a 2nd opinion of what bhos we
were running and it revealed another one called jimmyhelp. After deleting
this we reenabled browser extensions and found the problem gone.

thanks anyway guys

 

[We Live For The One We Die For The One]

Can you run though that as a Stupid idiot guide

Have the same problem was going to reformat the drive, not good when
explorer.exe is 99% of cpu usage , nothing else works

Thanks.

 

[Dorothy]

I have exactly the same problem --again-- !
I had this problem one year ago also, a reinstall of XP did not work
after a format C: and a reinstall of Xp it was gone!
I had that optimizer.exe but deleting did not help I 'm waiting
for some genius now!