Page 1 of Spyware Hell

Having a hell of a time trying to eliminate Spyware from my system. What p*sses me off is I`ve got Spybot 1.3 running, Norton Firewall, Norton AV, pop-up stoppers and everything you`d think would stop this crap, but since midday yesterday I`ve been fighting a battle against Windows AdTools, ShopAtHome and worst of all eXact Advertising.BargainBuddy. I`ve managed to get rid of the first two, but eXact is friggin` unkillable. I zap it with Spybot, even do a manual cleanup in Program Files and the registry, but next time I boot up it`s there again as large as life and causing 17 problems according to Spybot. Anybody got any ideas?

J Mark Oates

yeah. stop looking at so much p0rn.

you need spysweeper. download it from www.download.com.
that should do the trick. reply back once you`ve ran it.

Try Win Patrol - gives you far greater control than msconfig over programs that start up when you first boot up

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Clayts, Moderator, DVD Reviewer
UK webmaster for Area 450 the independent Sampo/Maxent DVD site

This item was edited on Thursday, 6th January 2005, 20:01

Not sure if it`s the same one, but I *think* bargain buddy lists as a virus.
I had that same git of a thing when I had all those virii problems recently, and in the end up, needed to disable sys restore to get rid of it.

I got the URL here of the Symantec online scan that did the trick for me...<gets out USB key thing to grab url...>

http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?productid=symhome&langid=ie&venid=sym

There ya go, and for all Norton gets slagged off, that one finds a fair bit of crap if it`s in yer system!
Jimbo : oÞ

"Making Teenagers depressed is like shooting fish inna barrel"

This would be a good test of Microsoft`s new software...

www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

Tell us if it works.

Those three should be showing on your add/remove programsso removal is pretty simple, but sometimes they also sit in your TEMP folder and reactivate when you start up again.

So I`d close off Windows System Restore (in case any resident nasty is lurking in there-which is often the case then re-boot and go to control panel/add remove programs and carefully go through and look for those names or names you don`t recognise (Another `popular` one is ``Bulls Eye Network` which, when unistalled, opens up a web page offering anti spyware for sale!!!) uninstall them, then go to C:/Documents & Settings -make sure that `view all files` is ticked (Tools>folder options>view>Show hidden files and folders) . You should see several files here, depending on how many users are set up on your machine-assuming it`s only one, you will see files called `All Users` and `Default` then one with the profile name you set Windows up with -go into that and look for a folder called `Local Settings`(That will be slightly `lighter` than most of the others (*as it is a `hidden file) in there you will see a folder called `TEMP` ..Basically, you can delete everything thats in there (This is where most stuff that hasn`t fully uninstalled or temp files form crashes go-there is nothing `vital in there, though current temporary files for open applications may well be in there-it won`t cause you any major problems if you delete these, but it`s best to do this immediately after restarting before running any programs) and that should get rid of all the nasties..update Spybot and chuck on Ad Aware too if you don`t have it- updated versions of both may not stop it getting on there (These things are now self installing themseves when you visit some websites) but they should get rid of them.

The best `killer` is HiJack This, but if you aren`t that confident, I wouldn`t use it as you could end up nuking something you need.

Been battling these at work for the past couple of days. Found that the microsoft app works suprisingly well, had to run it a couple of times, and did find a couple of missed reg entries, but overall seems OK.

As EmilyHoward said you need to turn of System Restore. Click Start>Control Panel>System>System Restore and tick the box that says "Turn off all System Restore on all drives."

Reboot the machine and then run SpyBot etc

:D hi download microsoft beta1 spyware it worked for me even got rid of about blank there is link on an earlier posting, peter