spyware or something

[randomer]

I am having unberable problems with my computer at the moment. I think that I have spyware or adware or something like that. I have a warning icon that flashes in the taskbar in the bottom right hand corner of my screen (my os is windows xp) and the little bubble keeps popping up telling me that my computer has a trojan or worm attack every 20 seconds or so. I know that it isn't a real icon because of its annoyance, choice of words and the link goes to anonymous sites claiming to have anti-virus software which I suspect are fraudulent. As well as that I am having pop-ups appear quite a lot of the time in an internet explorer window advertising to me. I don't even use internet explorer so know that it is not a normal website activity and that it is something on my computer making this happen.

I have run spybot and ad-aware on every user on the computer as well as a McAffee virus scan and I have run all three of these several times on my own user. The things that it comes up with all delete apart from one. I found out where the directory of this was (in the program files) and tried to delete it but was told that I couldn't because it was either write protected or was in use. Well I don't use the file at all and have already uninstalled the software.

Finally, my McAffee comes up occasionally telling me that it has blocked and deleted a trojan virus. It has done this at least 20 time now over the past 4 or 5 days with the same file name of the trojan 'fake-alertB' I think.

Sorry this question has been so long but I don't know what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[randomer]

I forgot to say: 'Windows Security Centre Disable Virus Notify' (I think that was it) keeps recurring in spybot when I scan it. I presumed that this wasn't a real windows thing but a fake one. Any help again would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[mattoc66]

this sounds like the same problem that ive just had.. (see question before you posted this)... I used my PC's "System Restore" to a date where i knew that my PC was working fine and this stopped it.. Also I downloaded and started using Firefox instead of IE as ive heard this can stop those annoying pop-ups

[randomer]

Will try this. Thanks.

[randomer]

But will I lose any files that I have created since then?

[mattoc66]

yes you will unless you back them up before you proceed.. Im running Windows XP pro and there was instructions on what u should do.. best of luck :)

[Ethel]

System restore does not lose 'saved' files or work generally speaking, so you should be ok there.

I may bang the drum a bit about computer safety but I really do think the advice and links on this thread are 100% solid.

http://cgi3.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUs erPage&userid=cuddly-hippo

On both my pcs I am running

ZoneAlarm (firewall)
AVG
Ewido
Spywareblaster
Windows Defender
X Cleaner
Lavasoft Ad-Aware
Spybot
a-squared

I keep them all updated and those programmes that need to be ran and don't just sit in the background - I run at least once a week.

They are all free and do not conflict.

I would get rid of McAfee in all honesty.

I also have AShampoo Platimum suite - the pop up blocker is excellent.

Good luck!

[randomer]

It's worked! Hooray! Thank you both for your answers. And McAffee came free with the laptop (Dell) and is working a lot better than other virus scanners/firewalls that I have had before such as ZoneAlarm and Norton Anti-virus. What I would do if I didn't have the answerbank! Thanks again to you both.

[bimbim]

great link Ethel have forwarded it to some friends .it always worries me how many people who just carry on running computers but have no idea about maintanence.