Weird Danger Spyware Background

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Guest

I've got this weird "wallpaper" that says "Danger Spyware" in a really
irritating bright red box. There's no virus but I can't remove it. I have
tried going into Desktop Settings and changing the background but it seems to
be blocked. The relevant window is shaded out. Any suggestions?
 
Barnsbury said:
I've got this weird "wallpaper" that says "Danger Spyware"
in a really irritating bright red box. There's no virus but
I can't remove it. I have tried going into Desktop Settings
and changing the background but it seems to be blocked. The
relevant window is shaded out. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Try the following:

Go back to Control Panel and double click on Display.
Click on the Destktop tab.
Click on the Customize button.
Click on the Web tab.
See if there's anything listed in the "Web items" box that
could be the box you want to remove.
If so, hit the Delete button.

Even if that gets rid of the problem, you might want to make
sure your antivirus software is up to date and run a scan.

You should also run a scan with AdAware and Spybot S & D.

AdAware
http://www.spychecker.com/program/adaware.html

Spybot S & D
http://www.spychecker.com/program/spybot.html

Next, you might want to visit some of the online virus scanners
and see what they find:

Run both the AntiVirus and the AntiSpyware scan on this site:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Click on the Scan your PC button while holding down the CTRL
key (to override any popup stoppers):
http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/activescan/com/activescan_principal.htm

McAfee FreeScan
http://us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp?WWW_URL=www.mcafee.com/myapps/mfs/default.asp

Good luck

Nepatsfan
 
Barnsbury said:
I've got this weird "wallpaper" that says "Danger Spyware"
in a really irritating bright red box. There's no virus but
I can't remove it. I have tried going into Desktop Settings
and changing the background but it seems to be blocked. The
relevant window is shaded out. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Forgot to pass along the following:

Depending on what you mean by "I have tried going into Desktop
Settings changing the background but it seems to be blocked"
take a look at the following possible solutions:

Line 128, right hand side:
Restore Desktop and Screensaver tabs
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Line 177, left hand side:
Restore the web tab - Display Properties
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

If neither of these fixes help, post back with more specific
details about what is blocked in Display Properties

Nepatsfan
 
Hey Barnsbury,

This sounds similar to one that a customer of mine had. The wallpaper in
this case asked the user to click here to remove the found infection.

Since I was unable to gain access to the real desktop settings that
Nepatsfan refers to, I place the mouse pointer over an unused area on the
desktop then right moise clicked to get the file name of the so-called
wallpaper. I say so-called because it was not a wallpaper. Once I located the
file name and deleted the file presenting the fake wallpaper, I was then able
to get to the desktop properties.

Just another thought.
 
Thanks for the suggestions Nepatsfan and Don but no joy I'm afraid. Here's a
full rundown of what's blocked in Desktop Settings. This is what I've been
doing:

Go to Control Panel
Go to Display
Go to Desktop tab

In the Desktop tab there is a picture of my computer with the "wallpaper"
(with nasty red background) and then under that a window headed Background.
In it are the following options:

Tulips, Vortec space, Wind and Windows XP. These all have the normal sunset
icon. There is then another one called Zapotec with an icon that looks like a
matchstick on a white background. Finally, at the bottom, is an icon that
says "desktop" with the blue "e" icon.

I'm guessing that it's the last one that is the problem. But, I cannot click
on any of the icons in that background window. Nor can I click on "browse" or
"position" buttons.

Any more thoughts?

Thanks again.
 
So you ran the registry fixes from Kelly's web site and they
weren't able to fix the problem? OK, you might want to try the
following:

Go to Start -> Run and enter regedit.exe in the Open box.
Navigate to this location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

If there's an entry in the right hand pane for Wallpaper, right
click on it and select delete.

Also, check this registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ActiveDesktop

Look for NoChangingWallPaper in the right hand pane and either
delete this value or modify the data from 1 to 0.

Good luck

Nepatsfan
 
I have got a problem similar to the one previously described. I managed to
get ride of the "spyware infection found" wallpaper, but now I cannot bring
up the wallpaper I previously had loaded. When I go to the desktop background
tab, the wallpaper selection screen is now grayed out, although it shows the
same six choice described in a previous message by another user. Is there any
way I can fix this short of editing the registry? I am not very comfortable
doing that.
 
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