Information Bar alerts a pop-up or download blocked

[Guest]

I downloaded a photo from the local on-line newspaper this morning and put it
in the My Pictures folder. Ever since then, whenever I open the folder from
the Start, My Pictures menu, a message pops up saying, "The Information Bar
alerts you when Internet Explorer blocks a pop-up window or file download
that might not be safe." I'm not online!! Something has to have installed
itself on my computer, but darned if I can find it. I can open the folder
from Windows Explorer and nothing pops up. Is something attached to "Start"?
All other folders open normally from there. I'm getting far more of a
computer education than I ever wanted! I'd appreciate any help you can give.
Thx.

P.S. I'm running XP Pro SP2 w/ Adaware, MSAS and SBC's Online Protection
Suite, and none of them detect any virus or spyware.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Information bar appears while opening the My Pictures folder:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/hptoolkit.htm

 

[Guest]

Thank you Ramesh! That solved the problem! Now, is the toolbar corrupted or
just lousy software? Is there a fix for the dll, or should it be removed?
Also, I found that the "My Videos" folder was doing the same thing which was
also solved by your suggestion. Thanks again.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

You're very welcome. For more information, pls look at the link HP Toolkit
Update for Windows XP Service Pack 2 Compatibility. (SP26332.exe)" in that
page.

 

[Guest]

Great! Thanks again.

You're very welcome. For more information, pls look at the link HP Toolkit
Update for Windows XP Service Pack 2 Compatibility. (SP26332.exe)" in that
page.

 

[Anth]

I downloaded a photo from the local on-line newspaper this morning and put it
in the My Pictures folder. Ever since then, whenever I open the folder from
the Start, My Pictures menu, a message pops up saying, "The Information Bar
alerts you when Internet Explorer blocks a pop-up window or file download
that might not be safe." I'm not online!! Something has to have installed
itself on my computer, but darned if I can find it. I can open the folder
from Windows Explorer and nothing pops up. Is something attached to "Start"?
All other folders open normally from there. I'm getting far more of a
computer education than I ever wanted! I'd appreciate any help you can give.
Thx.

P.S. I'm running XP Pro SP2 w/ Adaware, MSAS and SBC's Online Protection
Suite, and none of them detect any virus or spyware.

Hi Birdman,

From what you have said, i really dont think that you have been
infected with spyware, first of all you need to logically look at the
sequence of events you took prior to the information bar becoming
noticeable to you.

If you visited an online newspaper website and downloaded a photograph,
there is very little chance of you becoming infected from that website
directly, the source is clean.

I am not however ruling out an infection from spyware/malware however
the tools you have installed are very good and they detect 99% of the
most common types of spyware.

It could potentially be a bug with the information bar, i had a similar
thing, i had a folder full of videos and when i opened the folder, the
default view was "Thumbnail" windows would then give me a message about
"DEP" or Data Execution Prevention, there was no spyware or anything on
my machine, so i put it down to a bug, which strangely left as quickly
as it came.

Check your information bar settings and see if anything stands out in
there, please post back so we can see how you got on.

AJ