From: "Jim Sharkey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
It seems I have an unwelcome visitor, of sorts, on my computer. Every time I boot up, my home page is redirected to http://solongas.com/main/hp.htm, which shows up on my site window as
http://66.250.130.194/index.php?acc=2002. It's basically some BS search engine.
It's not a virus that's doing it, according to Norton, and neither Ad-Aware nor SpyBot Search &
Destroy have taken care of this problem. My guess is the culprit is a program called "loader.exe" which hs recently been added to my Windows directory. When I change my home page to somethign else, then doubleclick that program, it changes back to this page. This "loader.exe" program cannot be deleted, at least by normal means.
Did you install any shifty shareware lately? A lot of times, this kind of crud rides on on the coattails of some shareware programs.
The program changing your home page might be a Browser Helper Object, basically a program that intimately ties itself your web browser. Try downloading this program, BHO Cop :
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,270,00.asp
It will tell you any/all BHO's on your system, and let you disable them. (Note, not all BHO's are bad; my system has one installed for Adobe Acrobat, and another for Norton AntiVirus.) If there is one for this home page changer (and it is that loader.exe), you probably will ba able to delete the exe once you disable it and reboot.
What OS are you using?
If BHOCop doesn't help, check your startup folders (the all user one and the one for your account), if you're in WinXP, and make sure loader isn't being started from there. Also check your system.ini and win.ini files (in your Windows dir) for any "run=" and "load=" lines that might be suspicious. Also, check the Windows registry for any suspicious startup stuff (I can tell you the regs keys if you don't know them).
Actually, if you have XP, there's an easier way to check some of the startup stuff:
run "msconfig" from the run dialog box off the start menu. Msconfig will show you you ini files, and it will list all the registry auto-start stuff (and also disable it).
Hope this helps, -bryon
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