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Internet Explorer keeps opening new windows
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Greg Flett
Flettmag@aol.com
11/27/03
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Hi there,
Can somebody help me, I'm having major problems with my internet explorer.
I'm running windows XP with IE 5.5 SP2, and whenever I connected to the internet - regardless of the ISP - the connection speed was normal, but pages were taking ages to load, and ping requests were timing out.
I opened up task manager and discovered that an Internet Explorer window had opened up in the background and was pointing to some random adult website. I closed this window down (using Task manager End Task since the window seemed to be hidden), but within a few seconds another one had opened. No matter how many times I try closing them down, another one always opens up regardless. This is really eating in to my connection speed as I only have a 56k modem.
Does anybody have any idea what is causing this and how I can stop it?
Thanks,
Greg.
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snowman
11/27/03
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Your browser is being redirected, it has been Hijacked by a piece of spyware. This crapware may have exploited vulnerabilities in IE if you have not gone to windows update and obtained the critical updates.
Some, but not all of this crap, is being flagged by the anti virus vendors, usually as a byte verify trojan.
Unfortunately there a lot of them. To remove them you must identify them.
You can run an online virus scan at :
http://housecall.trendmicro.com
Note whatever it may identify. It may not be able toclean it completely.
You can download and run CW-shredder, from here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html
This will work well if it's in the database
You can use download, and IMPORTANT update it
Spybot S&D from:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html
You may also and wosre have a dialler on the system.
Whether spyware, trojan dialler depends.
Do the above and write down the identifications.
Good luck.
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snowman
11/27/03
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Sorry link to Sybot S&D should be:
http://www.safer-networking.org/
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Greg Flett
Flettmag@aol.com
11/28/03
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Thanks Snowman.
I did a Windows XP system restore to a date before I had the problem, and it seemed to resolve it.
Just to be sure I ran CW-shredder and AdAware6 and they both picked up a few rogue files & registry keys.
I've also installed ZoneAlarm Firewall just to be on the safe side.
Thanks for the help.
Greg.
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Hammer
12/01/03
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If you have Win XP you MUST have IE6. you cannot install a previous version of IE on XP. It simply wont allow backwards installs unless you have an uprade version of XP & the upgrade did not install all files (therefor your earlier ver of IE is still loaded). Win XP comes with IE 6.0.26xx (the very first IE6) as minimum. If you have IE5.x on win XP that's your first problem. All that should be needed is to update IE directly from microsoft via the downloads page & it will rectify all IE probs. I bet you had problems with secure sites, like banking etc. I would recommend updating to the latest ver of IE 6 if your running XP anyway because it installs sp1 plus a later fix that stops 'Blaster' worm from infecting you & using your machine to spread itself to other XP users.
Good luck with it all.
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