Hijack help...

[top fuel]

A friend's PC has been "raped" with hijack software stuff. I had a similar experience a while ago, and I have tried all the things I was shown back then.

I have managed to restore the homepage and the search function but now whenever she visits Hotmail it immediatly re-directs you to about:blank. It seems to open a new window and close the hotmail one, because the "back" button on IE is greyed out.

The hijacker/spyware is CWS (CoolWebSearch)

Anyone able to help???

[mindgam3]

try downloading adaware from another computer (its free) and loading it onto the infected one. Run it and it should clear everything up.... run your antivirus after that just to make sure

[highwayman]

Try this.....

www.majorgeeks.com/download3019.html

[top fuel]

mindgam3 said:

try downloading adaware from another computer (its free) and loading it onto the infected one. Run it and it should clear everything up.... run your antivirus after that just to make sure

I downloaded Spybot, spysweeper, and Hijack this...

when you run spysweeper it clears the problems up, but re-sets itself when the computer is re-started.

[top fuel]

highwayman said:

Try this..... www.majorgeeks.com/download3019.html

ta. I'm on My own PC now, so i'll try this tomorrow

[BliarOut]

Try running them in safe mode as it stops the process spawning.

The trick they use is to insall two processes. When one dies, the other one puts it back. They work in parallel and replace each other.



There are better ways, but try the simple approach first!

[fid]

Got it on my computer this morning, and it's not leaving! Tried everything I know, been through the registry cleaning it all out...but it keeps coming back

[G Man]

I had this a week or two ago

Download the microsoft anti-spyware beta version for free
www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
That should do it and then change to firefox and put these problems behind you
www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

G MAN

[top fuel]

Already got her using Firefox


Thanks for the rest of the help. Haven't had a chance to get onto the other PC yet. I'll let you know if any of the above methods fix the problem.

Thanks again.

~ Paul

[woolfie]

before going into safe mode, also disable the system restore, usually from the control panel..system, performance, file system (these are in Windows ME); reboot, into safe mode..do your stuff..then reverse the process. But also clean out your tmp files. Use hijack this, to keep on seeing whats happening, fix as appropriate. Check that the registry is clean as well.

[ErnestM]

top fuel said:

Already got her using Firefox Thanks for the rest of the help. Haven't had a chance to get onto the other PC yet. I'll let you know if any of the above methods fix the problem. Thanks again. ~ Paul

If all else fails, you can always restore an old registry backup and then run the antispyware stuff. That seems to clean everything up...

ErnestM