Re: Really OT: More on spy/adware problems

[Pat White]

Dave, you're lucky you have XP.  I run XP, Norton Antivirus, and I'm 
connected to the Net through a DSL router.  Even so, my computer was 
attacked in July.  58 files came through in 2 minutes, many of them multiple 
copies of viruses and worms.  My address book was blank, IE Favorites nearly 
all disappeared, and the hundreds of messages in my Inbox and Sent Items 
were gone.

Ad-Aware was able to get rid of the worms and viruses, but it took System 
Restore to bring back my missing info.  It made my day to see it all 
restored.  The next day, another attack put 21 files on my hard drive. 
Norton AV got rid of most of them, but couldn't delete 8 of them.  When I 
installed Ad-Aware SE a couple of weeks ago, I was finally able to get rid 
of them.

Last week, after seeing postings about Spybot S&D on the pdml, I installed 
that.  It found and eliminated a few more problems that Ad-Aware and Norton 
Antivirus had been unable to see.  For the first time in months, I think my 
machine is clear of unwanted files.

As for pop-ups, XP Service Pack 2 (installed a month ago) seems to keep 
nearly all of them out.

Try System Restore and go from there.  Good luck, Dave!
Pat White