Antispyspider - How do I get rid of it?

judder

judder

judder

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My wife's computer appears to have contracted a problem of some kind. After switching on, Windows XP loads up then there is a big pause. After the pause the desktop fills with the usual icons, but the screen goes red. Furthermore, popups keep appearing to say that the computer is running slow, malware has been detected and other such things...

When accessing the internet, Explorer will not take me to the usual homepage and I often get redirected to something called antispyspider.us/130 without any action from me.

1) Does anyone have any idea how to get rid of this problem?
2) How would it have got into the machine in the first place?

Thanks very much in advance for any help you can offer.
 
sounds like spyware, download spybot search and destroy and ad-aware theres another good one but forgotten the name, try them. Normally get them from clicking on dodgy sites or dlin "video codecs". Also use Mozilla Firefox ;)
 
Thanks for the reply. I've tried Ad-Aware. It has been running now for 90 minutes and appears to have stalled at about 15% of 'scan completed' (total objects scanned = 1951). It has not moved in the last 86 minutes.

The other thing is that when I try to open Task Manager, it tells me that it has been disabled.

Any further help? Please?
 
hmm well when i run adaware i tend to turn off screen savers and just let it run by itself until its finished scanning, i dont use the internet or anything tends to prefer me doing that lol, also i think ad aware does tend to look like its stalled when it hasnt. How bigs your HD?
 
Hi. The HD is 80Gb with 60Gb free. The machine is used literally for nothing more than word processing, e-mail and various bits of University work.
 
Thanks for that. I'm currently trying to shut down the computer! It won't let me! I think I'll have to remove the battery.
 
Ok, so I've shut it down and restarted in safe mode. I've run my anti-virus software, which found nothing. After 2 hours, Ad-aware didn't seem to get anywhere, though I'll leave it running overnight and hope for the best in the morning. The disabling of Task Manager is disturbing. How did that happen? I'm getting nowhere with this (I've been trying various things for the last 3 and a half hours). In the end, perhaps I'll have to reformat the hard drive, but I'd really rather not have to do that.

Any further suggestions?
 
Thank you for you reply. I don't know what process explorer, but I've found a method which should re-enable my Task Manager. It requires me to modify something in the registry. I'll have a go when I get home from work.
 
I had this about 2 months ago.. the wife was playing on various websites.. when I came to use the computer, my Desktop was some 'Malware' website (active Desktop) and my home page, no mater what I set it too, kept going to the same page!...

The page looked just like the Windows Security center!!... but it was on t'internet!.. Plus I was locked out of the Task manager!..

I use Process Explorer so I could see loads of process's using nearly 140mb and 40% of my system!!!...

No matter what I tried I couldn't shift the problem!.. so I had to re-install Windows from Scratch!!..
 
Thank you for the reply, but oh dear! I was hoping it would not be quite so catastrophic. When you say that you had to re-install Windows from scratch, do you mean you had to reformat your HD, or just put the Windows disk in your drive and go from there? Cheers.
 
Full Backup of all important Data and Re-Format!!!...

Thankfully this gave me something to do during my standard Friday Night bouts of insomnia!...

Although this was done twice in as many months!... I've now Banned the Wife from Certain Websites!!...
 
Ok, so I tried Counterspy in Safe Mode. It found a few things which I deleted, but then on restarting the machine, there was no change to the problem. I think it's going to have to be reformatting, which brings me to my next question(s).

1) Prior to reformatting, I need to make copies (e.g. on an external hard drive) of all my documents, photos, etc. Should I backup anything else?

2) How do I go about reformatting? Is it as simple as going to the command prompt and typing something along the lines of 'format C' or even simpler, by using the boot from cd option on the XP disc?

3) After reformatting, I realise that I will lose all my programs like Office, photo software, Adobe, etc., but will the computer lose its ability to recognise itself? I mean, will it lose recognition of its own HD or CD drive?

4) Will it lose its knowledge of how to access the internet (wirelessly or by cable)?

Sorry for the bulk of questions and thanks for any suggestions you can make. I'm not useless with computers, but have never had cause to reformat a hard drive before, so I want to make sure I don't kill it.
 
judder said:
1) Prior to reformatting, I need to make copies (e.g. on an external hard drive) of all my documents, photos, etc. Should I backup anything else?
Click to expand...

I used to also backup my Browser bookmarks/favourites, Outlook Express e-mails. Can find the directory Outlook Express stored in by Tools menu, Options, Advanced, Maintenance. Also saved my downloads of drivers, etc.

judder said:
2) How do I go about reformatting? Is it as simple as going to the command prompt and typing something along the lines of 'format C' or even simpler, by using the boot from cd option on the XP disc?
Click to expand...

Boot the computer with the Windows CD in the optical drive. If BIOS is set to boot from CD, you will have a few seconds to respond to a prompt to press any key to boot from CD while PC is booting. It might be worth making two partitions on the drive, so can store items on the second partition if decided to reformat again in the future

judder said:
3) After reformatting, I realise that I will lose all my programs like Office, photo software, Adobe, etc., but will the computer lose its ability to recognise itself? I mean, will it lose recognition of its own HD or CD drive?
Click to expand...

If you only have one partition, and do a complete/full format during the Windows installation, then once back at Windows Desktop you will be fine. Will still list C: for HD and D: for optical. It's just a case of now install device drivers to increase performance, e.g. motherboard chipset, graphics card, sound card, monitor colour profile inf, etc.

judder said:
4) Will it lose its knowledge of how to access the internet (wirelessly or by cable)?
Click to expand...

Unless you use a modem/router, which stores settings on it, you will lose settings. USB modems using a dial-up style connection box will be lost. E-mail account settings will be lost.
 
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Thanks very much, that's very helpful in planning my Friday night of joy! Just one more point about my internet connection; I don't think my question was particularly well structured. What I meant was, will the computer lose its knowledge of its wireless transmitter/receiver and/or its knowledge of its hard connection? Whatever it is that the ethernet cable from the router plugs into in the computer, will it forget it has it?
 
judder said:
but have never had cause to reformat a hard drive before
Click to expand...

Did you buy a prebuilt computer with Windows already on it? It may have a hidden recovery partition on the hard drive, or a recovery CD / DVD. "Recovering" will be much easier for a novice than a fresh install. Consult the documentation or contact the manufacturer.
 
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