I’m running XPHome and don’t know what to do next. There is a registry entry and a directory to which I am denied access, so I don’t know what’s in there. SpyBot scanned on reboot, found the same items and still couldn’t remove them. I tried Quarantine in AdAware to no avail.
Ideas, suggestions anyone?
Thanks.
Can you start in Safe Mode?
Perhaps that will allow you to remove it.
If you can’t do it in Safe Mode then boot to the Command Prompt and get it from there.
Go here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/
Read their FAQ and forum guidelines–what they’ll boil down to is downloading and running a little utility from them by name of HijackThis. This will generate a logfile which you can post on their appropriate forum, and the dedicated private army on the site will almost certainly guide you in what exactly you need to do to get rid of any malware that’s gummed in so tightly that neither Spybot S&D or AdAware can get it out.
If you are running Symantec or McAfee or similar security software, you can often go to their web sites and search on your specific problem to get a detailed list of the executables that need to be deleted and regostry changes that need to be made. (The Symantec site might be open to everyone; just put your ugly critter’s name into Google and see if there is a Symantec page that refers to it.)
I found a site that describes the manual removal of this little pest (it’s called ‘IBIS Toolbar’ or ‘Huntbar’). There’s a list of possible registry keys to delete, dll’s to unregister and delete and such. We’ll see how it goes tonight when I get home.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Based on searching for files listed on Pest Patrol, seems like all the important files have been removed and all that’s left is the “skeleton”, meaning a directory structure and a stray registry entry. So, I’ll just let SpyBot and AdAware skip over it for now.
Sorry for the hijack but I just restarted my computer so that Spybot could get rid of some stuff and this program, Power-Scan, appeared as soon as everything was done loading. I didn’t download this program and I’m not sure what it is. I tried uninstalling but that just makes a download window to download Power-Scan. I ran Spybot and Ad-Aware, and it doesn’t pick it up as anything. Has anyone else run into this?
teemingOne
Do a Search to determine if there is a file “powerscan.exe” residing on your machine. Then check and see if it is running in your Startup Programs. To see them use the Run dialog box > type msconfig > to the far right select Startup Tab > scan the .exe files for powerscan.exe. Uncheck the box if it is there and reboot. Do another search for “powerscan.exe” and delete the file. Delete the program file as well. Look here > C:\Program Files\Power Scan\powerscan.exe it might solve it. If not I will do more searching later, I hate these things. I would recommend downloading and installing Spyware Blaster. Installs once and stops identified spyware from installing in the first place. Make sure to get the latest update, it is explained pretty well and it seems to be very effective.
Hrm. I have some very nasty spyware on my computer that spybot can’t get rid of. Ad aware identifies it as “possible browser hijack” , but can’t get rid of it. Now I get all of these pop up adds related to the kind of sites we visit (for the most part anyways…) and several programs have stopped working. Also, some pages refresh for no reason at all many times.
Hopefull that spybot blast can help.
Folks, these hijackers are a real pain and they seem to be getting worse. The programs mentioned above all work well in combination. I learn something each time I help someone or get rid of one on my machine. It is tiring though, and now that my IE is clean I made the switch to Firebird and could not be more pleased. It has a learning curve but tabbed browsing is great, it blocks popups and I have not heard of anyone being hijacked. Take the time and try either Firebird, Opera or Mozilla. Keep IE for when it is required.I don’t think you will be sorry.
If you guys haven’t taken Drastic’s advice, DO IT NOW. It WILL solve your problems. Use Hijack This! and get the folks on that board to help you. It worked for me and I had more spyware than James Bond’s PC.
And since you, uh, couldn’t get rid of it if you wanted.