[strats101]

A friend of mine told me that Tech Guy did a great job of leading him through the steps of finding and deleting this junk. So I'm hoping for the same in my case here. Dell support and Norton support both told me it appears I have ad/spyware stuff stuck in my system. Basically the story is a few days ago I noticed my home page of Hotmail had been changed and I could not get rid of this page of some kind of a search engine by going to internet options as I had before if I ever had such a temporary problem. Also this page appeared when I opened an email attachment and now I've noticed it appears when I try to download any free ad/spyware removal offers like as if it knows I'm trying to get rid of it!!
please help
THANKS

 

[Hue]

Go here and download CW Shredder. See if that does the job... Without knowing exactly what has invaded your machine, this is the best guess: Cool Web Search, a nasty little bugger. I couldn't completely get rid of it with Ad-Aware or Spybot S&D, but CW Shredder killed it.

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html

Hue

 

[Cookiegal]

Hi and welcome to TSG,

It would be a good idea to run these programs to clear out some stuff and then post a Hijack This log for the experts to analyze.

AD-AWARE

Go here: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/
and download Ad-Aware 6 Build 181

Install the program and launch it.

First in the main window look in the bottom right-hand corner and click on Check for updates now and download the latest reference files.

Make sure the following settings are made and on -------ON=GREEN

From main window: Click Start then Activate in-depth scan (recommended)

Click Use custom scanning options then click Customize and have these options selected: Under Drives and Folders put a check by Scan within archives and below that under Memory and Registry put a check by all the options there.

Now click on the Tweak button in that same window. Under Scanning engine select Unload recognized processes during scanning and under Cleaning Engine select Let windows remove files in use at next reboot

Click proceed to save your settings.

Now to scan just click the Next button.

When the scan is finished mark everything for removal and get rid of it. (Right click the window and choose select all from the drop down menu and click Next)

Restart your computer

Download and run: SPYBOT SEARCH & DESTROY, here:

http://download.com.com/3000-2144-1...tml?tag=lst-0-1

Open Spybot Search & Destroy (Click Start, Programs, Spybot S&D (Advanced Mode). Click online, Search for updates, Download all available updates. Close all Browser windows, Click ''Check for Problems'', Put a check in every entry Spybot Search & Destroy flags with a red exclamation mark and click ''Fix Selected Problems'' , Then restart your computer.

Download both of these for added protection: SPYWAREBLASTER & SPYWAREGUARD, here:

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

Once you've done all that, download HIJACK THIS, scan and post the saved log here for an expert to take a look at as I’m not qualified to analyze the log.

Please do this. Click here: http://www.sherrylynn.us/HijackThis.exe to download Hijack This. Save it to it’s own folder (not temporary files or the desktop).

Close all open windows and open HIJACK THIS. Click “Scan”. When the scan is finished (it only takes a second), the scan button will change to “Save Log”. Click on “Save Log” and save it to NotePad. Copy the entire log and paste it here.

DO NOT FIX ANYTHING YET, most items that appear in the log are harmless or even needed. Wait for someone to analyze the scan and advise.

Cookie

 

[strats101]

To Hue and Cookiegal:
Hue, I tried the CWSHREDDER, but that didnt get it. Cookiegal, today I'll go through the list in order that you gave me to try and get back in touch.
thanks again
p.s. I'll gladly donate once I get this fixed!!

 

[Cookiegal]

I know it sounds like a lot to do but it really doesn't take that long and it's worth it.

Will wait for the log to be posted

Cookie

 

[strats101]

Cookiegal
Sunday evening I ran the adware scan after very carefully checking the options and presets to exactly your instructions but after two attempts it would never complete the scan and I had to abort each time. The first time it ran for awhile and stopped during "deep scanning C drive". After an hour and a half of watching it "hourglass" me, I shut it down. I started it again later and again it stopped in the exact same place, so I let stay there overnight and this morning after 9 hours of being "stuck", I aborted it again. What should I try now?
confused.

 

[Cookiegal]

Were you able to run Spybot Search and Destroy and install Hijack This?

Cookie

 

[strats101]

Cookiegal
I just now read some responses to a thread called "trouble with changed homepage" by Wgreen, and in that several people stated the exact same site address that's stuck in mine. It is www.nkvd.us.
I just thought I'd mention that in case it helps solve my case
thanks
strats101

 

[strats101]

cookie
I hadn't tried the others yet as I figured you meant for these downloads to be run in the order that you gave.
Should I try those now?
thanks

 

[Cookiegal]

Yes, please go ahead and run the ones that you can and then reboot and post the Hijack This log.

Once we see the log, we'll get help to remove those nvkd entries.

Cookie

 

[cybertech]

Run CWShredder in safe mode Click here to see how

 

[strats101]

To cookiegal and all others who responded:
I decided to try CWshredder one more time before I downloaded all the other ones listed in my instructions(from previous post- I couldn't get AD-AWARE6-181 to finish scanning). I got a CW update(I think it was for today's date) and ran it again and this time the www.nkvd.us was gone from my browser settings and homepage instantly and so was the unwanted website that was stuck in my Favorites list! I didn't even have to restart but I did anyway.
So I went ahead and set-up Spybot and it found 25 possible spyware things to kill. Then I set-up Spywareblaster. But now I have two questions remaining:
1. When I started to set-up Spywareguard they said they couldn't guaranty it wouldn't conflict with other security programs and they suggested some people might want to just use Spywblaster alone. Do you think I should go ahead and run them both at the same time?
2. I'm assuming I should still set-up Hijackthis and send you the copy of the registry scan in case there's still something stuck in there, right?
thanks

 

[Cookiegal]

That's great. I do think it would be a good idea to post a final log for the experts to look at just in case.

Many people (myself included) have both SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard running without any conflicts. I have read that some prefer just to run SpywareBlaster for whatever reason.

Cookie