Forced Home Page!?!

Rocsalt · Member Joined: 05 Mar 2003 Posts: 200

Some search engine site that I have NEVER heard of has at some point recently forced itself onto my "Home Page" and every attempt i've made at it has not reset it permenantly...

First I just went to tools, i-net options, and manually changed the home page back to my old one. (running Win Explorer 6 on Win XP Pro OS)

from then on my home page was the one I set it to UNTIL i logged off... at which time the annoying little site would AGAIN be my homepage Mad

What do you think/know about this situation?
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fieni · Member Joined: 29 Aug 2001 Posts: 686 Location: Californie

check for spyware:
Spybot - Search & Destroy ( http://www.safer-networking.org/ )
and
ad-ware ( http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/ )

Nerina · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 12:26 pm Post subject:

Just an fyi, I've had problems with spybot at work, I'd try Ad-Aware first.
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Bashdur K · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 12:27 pm Post subject:

Jeez Roc, I just went through that same thing. Was the page something like "Cool Home"? I ran every spy-bot killer I could find. I got to the point that I couldn't surf anywhere without getting a Kernal32.dll error.

I finally gave up and reformatted my drive yesterday. Next time I do that I hop eI remember to save my damned INI and CFG files from EQ.
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fieni · Member Joined: 29 Aug 2001 Posts: 686 Location: Californie

Both *can* generate problem dending on the application you have installed on your PC. Don't 'select all' and destroy. do it progressivly and you can always restore your change if problems.

g luck

Kanwer · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 12:29 pm Post subject:

I've been using Spybot for a while, but lately it won't download updates. I think I'm going to switch back to Adaware.
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fieni · Member Joined: 29 Aug 2001 Posts: 686 Location: Californie

what's the URL of your forced homepage?

fieni · Member Joined: 29 Aug 2001 Posts: 686 Location: Californie

Kanwer

I tried to update spybot just few minute ago. It did worked for me, however the download of the rules takes a long time where it seems to be doing nothing.
leave it running it will go through and update.

Kanwer · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 12:47 pm Post subject:

Ok, that's totally wierd. I've been trying to download updates from Spybot for days now and the program was not responding. After your message Fieni, I tried it again and it downloaded updates immediately. LOL
Thanks! Running it now.
_________________
"I might be a little bit loco, but it keeps me from losing my mind."

Kanwer Howlingwolf-Storm Warden-Retired

Sensei Boytoi-Retired

Mystyx Dreamz-51st Season Shadow Knight-Retired

Rocsalt · Member Joined: 05 Mar 2003 Posts: 200

http://www.searchv.com/

is my forced page. will look into the spy stuff.
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Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 3:11 pm Post subject:

Rocsalt:

Start > Find > Files or Folders (Slightly different in WinXP).

Search all of your hard drives for "hosts"

When the results come back, you want to find the "hosts" file somewhere within C:\Windows.

Open the file, make sure that it is completely empty with the exception of:

localhost 127.0.0.1

After that, right-click on your Internet Explorer icon and click on Properties. Click "Use Blank" on the top of the first page. Click OK.

If you're using Windows 98, hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and make note of everything you have running. Post that list here.

If you're using Windows XP, right-click on the Taskbar (the bar the Start Button is on) and click "Task Manager."

Click on the "Processes" tab. Check the box "Show processes from all users" at the bottom. Then click the "User Name" column heading and make note of every process running that is under YOUR user name (the name you log onto Windows with). If you don't log in with a user name, they will be listed under the name "Owner." Post those as well.

You can use spybot or adaware, but I've sometimes had very poor results with detection and cleaning of certain types of programs. I've even (in a corporate LAN environment) had it interfere with company applications. This is why my first line of defense is always to check certain things myself. Half of what the spybot programs do is just look at your cookies anyway.
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Rocsalt · Member Joined: 05 Mar 2003 Posts: 200

My user name =
rundll32.exe
soundman.exe
ituneshelper.exe
iexplore.exe
atiptaxx.exe
msstat.exe
msmsgs.exe
qttask.exe
explorer.exe
atix10.exe
taskmgr.exe

Local Service user name =
svchost.exe

system user name =
system idle process
system
smss.exe
csrss.exe
winlogon.exe
services.exe
lsass.exe
svchost.exe
svchost.exe
spoolsv.exe
ati2evxx.exe
gearsec.exe
ipodservice.exe

.

.
I recognise some of that... I don't know why Ipod or Itunes is running, don't recall ever visiting sites for/with it. well, anyway... that's the whole list, even tho you only asked for stuff under my user :p haven't had time to read the stuff about the adware thing i downloaded so haven't tried to install any of it.
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fieni · Member Joined: 29 Aug 2001 Posts: 686 Location: Californie

This problem is described at:

http://www.pestpatrol.com/PestInfo/s/searchv.asp

a solution is proposed

Shiloch Veneficus · Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2003 6:54 am Post subject:

Nice, Fieni. Great find. Smile

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Sage Shiloch Venzolmes - Arch Convoker - Walkers
QUALITY, not quantity.