Something strange is happening…everytime I reboot, my Internet Explorer home page is changed. I change it back to what I want (My Yahoo, FWIW); the next time I boot, it’s back to some bogus search/portal that I won’t mention.
I suspect Morpheus is behind this.
But anywho:
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Assuming it’s something in my Startup process, what is that utility that shows you all the programs that run during start up?
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How can I tell which program it is that’s doing it?
2a. Are IE settings saved in a file? I was thinking of setting this file to read only, and see what happens.
You’ve checked your startup folder, right?
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“msconfig”
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I’m not an expert, so I don’t have a definitive answer for this one. If msconfig shows something that looks suspicious, you can disable it. But be very careful to avoid disabling something you need. You could also try using Windows Explorer “find” to search for files which contain the URL for the persistent home page.
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As far as I know, it’s the registry. Setting it to read-only is probably not a good idea.
This Page tells you how to fix it, and how to prevent it from happening again.
www.spywareinfo.com has lots of helpful tips for defending your browser from adware, trojans, and spyware.
Thanks.
Msconfig showed a pretty obvious intruder; something called “sdfg.vbs”. Just to make sure, I did a search on the URL of the hijacked home page, and sure enough, got a hit on this bogus .vbs program. I disabled it in msconfig, and deleted the file.
Then I downloaded ad-aware from the spywareinfo site, and ran a scan on my registry and hard drive. Turned up hundreds of hits.