wierd virus?

Joined
Nov 20, 2001
Messages
2,600
My dad calls me up because his Earthlink dial up+IE are not working correctly. I went to see the problem, and IE launches, but the first window is a Cannot find server error. Then, 2-4 windows pop up with a Puppyboyz.net/motor.htm address. this will not load either. The Home page hasn't been reset in the pref's box, the security has no "safe sites" listed, and in the 20 minutes of looking at it I can't find out why this is coming up. I'm going to bring ADaware se, and a mozilla to try to root out the problem, and get around IE to see if his connection is ok, which it should be, as his laptop works fine. Have any of you seen this thing or heard of it? He vehemently denies looking at anything questionable, but (edited for sensibility) :D . any help will be appreciated. Thanks, Joe
 
These things can be the very devil to get rid of. They can self install and dont show up in most of the likely places like Add/Remove programs. Is he running XP or an older version? If he is running XP you can restore the PC to a previous state and that usually fixes it.

I guess going with adaware and some other freeware is probably the way to go. Search and Destroy is another and maybe others will chime in on alternate choices/experience.

All you can do is mooch around on the drive and try and find it. Have a look in the registry too. I have castrated a lot of crap in there, but be VERY careful as once you zap something its gone forever.
 
I'm sure Collucci will see this question, anyway, but I just emailed him to point it out, also. He's pretty good with these kinds of problems. Hang in there, help is on the way! :cool:
 
This is a spyware/adware program that hides in a explicit email or website. You will not find it in Add/Remove Programs.

Step 1: Download, install, and update all of these programs.
Step 2: Turn off System Restore. VERY IMPORTANT!!! You don't want to have the virus hiding in your restore files. Very, very bad!

Step 3: Reboot the PC into Safe Mode

Run your antivirus software in Safe Mode. Delete any viruses that show up.

Step 4: Reboot your PC

Step 5: Run all of the programs from Step 1. Delete any file it finds.

After you do all this let me know if you still have connection problems because that can be a whole other ballgame.
 
I had one of those, really irritating. It was a multi-part problem too, i found the (easy to spot) process part of it and got rid of it manually, then it tried to open connections but because the process was gone it always failed. Ultimately i found two more files to remove manually and one more that had tobe removed by a dedicated utility which i found online by entering the name of the last file i couldn't erase myself and i found no reference of in registry. Anyway, when that utility removed the last bit from the list of IE porotocols or somesuch (something that i couldn't find in registry or anywhere else in system settings) i could finally erase the last offending file and from that point on had no problems with that thing ever again. It took me about 2-3 days to get rid of all the crap that installed automatically when i visited a website and Ad-aware and simialr utils only got rid of approximatelt 50% of the offending stuff (i had to remove 3 manually).
 
Mike Hull said:
I get a "page not found" error on the "CWShredder" link.:confused:
No problem. Link is fixed.
 
thanks, everybody-As soon as I get on that project, I will be be able to mail Collucci, and give an update.
 
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