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Holliday
06-18-2004, 03:56 PM
Ok, here's the situation (my parents went away for a weeks vacation): Last night I got infected with a nasty bit of adware and I can't get rid of it. HELP!
What it has done: Put up a browser window across my desktop so I can't see the background but I can see the icons (no clue how it did that). The reason I know it's a browser window is the right-click menu is the one for IE and if I go to the very tippy top there is one little sliver of desktop left where I can right-click to the getproper menu.Also, it has reset my home page to a html file it put on my hard drive. When I navigate away from that html file it pops up*drum roll please* aporn site.
What I've done: Run Ad-aware and Spybot S&D (both updated) to no avail. I've tried to reset my IE home page but it ischanged backas soon as I close the window. I've tried to manually delete the file on my hard drive but as soon as I do, it's replaced with another of the same name. I've also downloaded a bunch of spyware removal tools but nothing works.
Can any of you PC savvy people help me out?
uncle carbunkle
06-18-2004, 04:10 PM
damn, man - that sucks.
last time i had a big problem like that, i found the tom coyote forum a HUGE help. in fact, they just fixed it for me. you may need a program called HijackThis. you can get it herehttp://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php?showtopic=227and they will ultimatelysend you here http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/hijacked/#removal.
hope that helps. ifit's a problem that they are able to help you with, it should be sorted before lunch time.http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/emoticons/thumbsup.gif
greetings, earthlings. take me to your dealer.
Holliday
06-18-2004, 04:31 PM
Hey thanks Unc! It's my home computer so I'll have to wait before I can try anything from over there but that certainly looks like the place I need to go.
Ryan8720
06-18-2004, 06:26 PM
Go HERE (http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/). It will detect what has infected your PC and tell you have to remove it. And once you get rid of it switch to Mozilla.
http://edgewebdesign.org/ryan2.gif (http://www.edgewebdesign.org)
Quick! There is time to waste, hurry up and wait!
Mickey
06-18-2004, 06:36 PM
and stop visiting PORN sites!
http://home.wi.rr.com/mygraphics/konceptcreative.jpg
Mickey
06-18-2004, 06:46 PM
or you could just buy a Mac and that crap wouldn't happen!
http://home.wi.rr.com/mygraphics/konceptcreative.jpg
D-Frag
06-18-2004, 07:00 PM
Ryan8720 said...
Go HERE (http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/). It will detect what has infected your PC and tell you have to remove it. And once you get rid of it switch to Mozilla.
Duuuuuuude, what is the big deal about Mozilla? I heard it was cool so I downloaded it.....um, isnt it basically just a screwy version of Netscape? I didn't like it one bit, and now im back IE6 again. The #1 problem I had with Mozilla, my screen would move up and down about a 1/16th of an inch at about 3 second intervals when I surfed, and trying to read articles with the words going up and down is a pain in the butt. Oh, and adding favorites to my pre-existing IE favorites was lame, it wouldn't give me the option to put my fav in a folder, instead it would just put it in favs, then I had to open options and manually do it. So, did I get a bunk version of mozilla, or do people just put up with its faults so they don't get hacked?
http://gallery.cybertarp.com/albums/userpics/13115/killer_cartoon.gif
Ryan8720
06-18-2004, 07:07 PM
Were you using Mozilla or Mozilla Firefox (Firebird)? I use Firefox. I have never had it move up and down. Not sure about the favs, mine asks the folder every time.
101 Things You Can Do in Mozilla (http://www.xulplanet.com/ndeakin/arts/reasons.html)
http://edgewebdesign.org/ryan2.gif (http://www.edgewebdesign.org)
Quick! There is time to waste, hurry up and wait!
Holliday
06-18-2004, 07:10 PM
I tried Firefox the other day. I really did. But when I came here the 'Back to Top' links didn't work and I can't navigate this forum without those, appearently.
Holliday
06-18-2004, 07:11 PM
Mickey said...
and stop visiting PORN sites!
Wha-? You mean there's something on the Internet other than porn sites???
*blown away*
Ryan8720
06-18-2004, 07:13 PM
Wow, they don't work do they. Oh, well, I never used them.
http://edgewebdesign.org/ryan2.gif (http://www.edgewebdesign.org)
Quick! There is time to waste, hurry up and wait!
YellowDart
06-18-2004, 07:21 PM
Holliday, boot Windows into safe mode by holding f8 while Windows initializes. This spyware is probably a process that runs on system startup, so booting into safe mode should prevent it from starting up. Then try running Ad-Aware, Spyware S&D, McAfee, Norton, or whatever you've got. Ad-Aware has always worked really well for me. /emoticons/icon_wink.gif
You could also hit ctrl+alt+del to bring up your task manager and look for any suspicious processes running under the 'Processes' tab. If you decide to end a processes, just make sure not to end one named 'explorer.' If you end one, and your computer starts acting up, just restart, you didn't break anything. /emoticons/icon_razz.gif
The Task Manager search can be a pain in the ass, but at least once you'll be able to know exactly what it is that's running your spyware. Also, make sure that Windows Messenger is disabled under msconfig.
You also may have something running off of your network ports. Are you on a network at home???
Holliday
06-19-2004, 02:19 PM
YD- Yeah, that was one of the first things I did. Unfortunately, the only way I could get it to go away was to end 'explorer'. It's not really a process, just a weird browser window and a file that duplicates itself upon delete. Is there a file somewhere that says 'Hey Explorer, when you start do this'?
uncle carbunkle
06-19-2004, 05:56 PM
yo, fresh prince! what up? you sorted that pc out yet? what's the haps?
greetings, earthlings. take me to your dealer.
Holliday
06-19-2004, 07:46 PM
Heya Unc! Thanks for the concern. I did, just a little while ago. Those forums you sent me to helped a little last night but have been going through an overnight overhaul, so they've been down for a while. :/ They directed me to another set of forums and that helped a little too, but none really fixed the problem.
Here's what I did: Made a new XP user acct, gave that new acct PHENOMENAL COMISIC POWERS (itty bitty living space) and zapped my old account. Seems to have cleared it all right up. Now all I have to do is wait for Adaware or Spybot to come out with an update that fixes it and it'll be gone forever.
Now here's the question: did the above really do anything?
what a miraulous way to handle this :)
well in case adaware n co do not update tha fast u can always check your puter on http://www.pestscan.com/
sscheer
06-21-2004, 05:37 AM
I dealt with the same problem afew months ago. EVerytime my mom and I would log onto the computer there would be this porn site that would come up, and it too was listed as one of our favorites. What we did was we had to have the whole system cleaned out for it to be out of the system. Too we had several viruses and could not seem to get them out of our system ourselves. So, that is what happened.
You might just have to have your system cleaned out for it to be problem free and make sure to download the microsoft antivirus things. We have not had any problems yet on the computer.