spyware, adware, malware, etc. -- help!!!

Grif:
Thanks much for the ideas. I ran CWShredder but my computer rebooted itself 3 times in a row while doing so, so something is goobered up with that. The trendmicro scan found several CoolWebs which it deleted, though. The startup icons screen still is black (instead of normal blue) with the 'warning' but I still have to do the Safe Mode. It's getting late (I'm in Central Time Zone) so I'll have to do more in the morning. Thanks again, progress is being made. ffej10

you can and start over

Keep trying in Safe Mode, then try in "normal" Windows. Use any and all scanning tools...Last week, I cleaned out two separate computers which took about 6-8 hours each...Repeated scans eventually got it done, although a couple of manual deletions were required in Safe Mode when specific files were identified and a scanner would clean them out.

Here's something else to try. Download the tool below, unzip it then run it. It stops a particular version of CoolWebSearch that shuts down your antispyware programs. After the tool does it's job, then CWShredder, Ad-Aware and Spybot should run correctly.

CoolWWWSearch.SmartKiller removal tool

Here's another standalone tool that cleans out a number of viruses. As before, download it to your desktop, restart into Safe Mode, then run it repeatedly till it comes up clean.

McAfee Stinger Download Link

Hope this helps.

Grif

I'm having the same problem. have tried to use the smartkiller removal tool, but am unable to unzip the file -- it keeps opening in Excel. I'm running windows 98 -- any idea why it won't unzip?
Tried shredder and it doesn't pick anything up.

To open a .zip file, you'll need an unzipper program. Windows 98 doesn't install one by default. There are a lot of free ones available on the internet but here's a link to a small one that I use.

Cam Unzip
http://www.camunzip.com/

CWShredder is only ONE tool available for detecting spyware. If you don't already have them, download, install, update, then run ALL of the tools from the links below:

Ad-Aware">http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/]Ad-Aware

Thanks Grif. don't believe there is a zipper program on there, so I'll give it a try as well as the virus checks.
The sick pc is a little-used basement machine, and who knows where the daughter went on it. It has adaware & norton antivirus on it, but they hadn't been updated/run for a couple months. Ran the updates then loaded spybot & fix-it utilities on it last weekend to try & get it back to normal. Have run them all in normal and safe modes several times, but the stuff keeps coming back. At what point do you just reformat the drive & start over?

blu

...and whether you've got backups of the important data.

If it's only one bad malware file that keeps coming back and you can nail down the name of the malware, you can frequently determine which file is the problem and delete it manually. But it might take a while. On the other hand, especially if you've got the Recovery CD's that came with the computer, using the Recovery Cd to take the computer back to factory condition is pretty quick. (Place the Recovery Cd in the CD drive, restart the computer and you'll be given options to restore. Selecting the right option causes the computer to reformat and reinstall automatically. )Unfortunately, you then need to add any other programs that you had installed on the computer, plus install all the Windows Updates, etc.

It just depends on your situation. At the office, where we keep constant backups of all data and very few extra programs are installed, it can be less time consuming to simply reformat and reinstall. That may not be the case on a home computer with lots of personal programs installed, lots of music files, etc.

Hope this helps.

Grif

which may be run when Windows starts; unknown programs in the Add/Remove Programs; and any lingering unknown files in the Windows\Temp folder that should be removed/eradicated.