Hey William, you seem to know what your doing, what do you think about this?

My computer crashed last week, when I turned it on it posted that I had spyware as my background, so I deleted my spyware with Microsoft Antispyware, and the background is permanently stuck to my background and can not be changed....But the weird thing is that when I log off my computer the one I have selected pops up when the Icons go away, suggesting it is being covered up by the Spyware background, and it does the same at start up..image I have selected pops up, icons come on and it all goes away and the Spyware background is on again. Also if it helps it has disabled by ability to choose a background from control panel.

So, any Ideas?

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It is good to see that everyone no longer posting here is actively downloading the proposed antispyware programs.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

I may not be able to join the Chat, but I don't have to worry (much) about spyware

I'm not William, but I'd suggest using AdAware and/or Spybot S&D instead of the Microsoft equivalent. They're very late to the party, as usual, have bought their way into the game, as usual, and also as usual, have little real concept of how to do it right.

As for your current problem, it sounds like Microsoft did a very incomplete job of getting rid of the spyware. Your installation may or may not be damaged.

I'd make up-to-date backups and try AdAware. Failing that, I'd reinstall a fresh windows.

There may be a way to repair your installation, but I have little experience there. I prefer a fresh installation to a half-crippled one, even if it's more of a pain to do it "the hard way".

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Dammit...I was hopping it wouldn't come to that...I don't care enough about the background or spyware to refresh my Windows. I have done it so many times....it is just a pain in the arse to re-do everything.

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Bash, bahs, bash but my experience is that it's a free program that blocks everything evil up to now, also when visiting dangerous sites.

Dragon Star: I would try many ways before reinstalling windows. There's a good chance you can find and get rid of that spyware. If you trace the file but it reinstalls itself, here's a good way:

*delete the virus file.
*create an empty file and name it exactly as the virus file
*now the virus will not reinstall itself, as it thinks it's already there. Of course, that works only for certain viruses and isn't the most elegant way. Still, 2 of those files saved an old computer from a format here.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

*cough* Actually, that's Microsoft's fault again, Nicolas. XP has a service that backs up and restores changes to your windows system directory. Useful? Not really. Unfortunately, if a virus or spyware gets into the backup (and apparently it's not all that hard to do), Windows will happily restore it forever.

Nicolas's method will work. (Just drop in an empty text file and rename it.)

Or, turn off the windows system backup (you don't really need it) by bringing up your control panel, clicking on your "system" icon to get the System Properties panel. Switch to the System Restore tab, then click the "turn off System Restore on all drives" ticky, answering "yes" to the "are you sure".

Then let your defense software off the virus/spyware.

[edit:] Just to mention, Nicolas, I'm not in the habit of criticising Microsoft unfairly (key word).

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Wouldn't it be better to scan through the list looking for suspicious entires? A quick look through the list reveals that if I took your advice then my systray would disappear, my soundcard would no longer work, I'd no longer be able able to switch the video output to my tv, my phone would no longer sync when I plug it in, my printer would no longer work, .... More worringly, aren't some antivirus programs launched from there? And I don't think it would stop things in my startup folder from running either, not to mention all those deviant programs (the ones you're probably most interested in killing) that don't actually use the documented methods to get themselves up and running.

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There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand ternary, those who don't, and those waiting for a bus.
If logic doesn't work, then surely it does.

Actually, msconfig will access the startup folder as easily as the registry startup keys, so that part's covered.

The rest of your criticism is bang on. While you can turn off spyware using the msconfig utility, using it indiscriminantly can turn off important stuff too.

For what it's worth, AdAware is the most generally reliable and user-friendly solution to spyware I've seen to date.

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Oh, I assure you that my system is clean as of now, I have ran every kind of free anything on the net, and after all that I ran Norton twice with a fallow up of Mcafee. Nothing found in every case after I deleted the initial spyware. Here is the thing, when my computer actually has spyware, it gives a blimp at the bottom from the task-bar about every 2 seconds until you get rid of it, and that is no where to be seen....I am just stuck with this damn background with SPYWARE INFECTION in big red leaders, just like this.

The full message reads as :

"SPYWARE INFECTION

Your system is infected with spyware, windows recommends that you use a spyware removal tool to prevent loss of important data and increase system performance. Using this PC before having it cleaned from spyware threats is highly discouraged."

Something else is to blame, but all well, worst that could happen is my computer turns into a black hole and swallows up our solar system...no biggie.

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I don't know you as someone who screams we must kill evil Microsoft from every tower, but who has back up for his claim, so I believe you.

About that reinstalling: that has not necessarily to do with System Restore. Those viruses I encountered were on PC's without System Restore on (heck, even one with win 95 that HAS no system restore ). Some viruses just seem to run at startup, creating the actual virus file. If you stop that virus from running from your processes tab, delete the actual virus file which has the same name as the process (the creator often can't be traced that easy), replace it with the dummy file and reset, you're all set. (except for that it's not elegant)

I can imagine System restore can be used to create similar viruses though.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

You didn't click on an advertisement for Spyhunter any time recently did you?

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If ignorance is bliss, why is the world so full of misery?

I don't click advertisements, but it could be a possibility that I did by accident, why, that bad?

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popup advertisements are ALWAYS bad

Well, by bad I mean reformat bad.

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It's been my experience that one has to rebuild a Windows machine periodically anyway.. so.. is it 'BAD' to do something that you probablyl have to do anyway?

It would cost me a whole day to get it back to the setup I like.

Who, in his right mind, would buy anti-spyware from a company
that advertises in such a manner? I feel more like putting them
against a wall.

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Join the Illuminati

Lavasofts adaware and Spbot bot have served me well. I update and run them once every few weeks. AVG virus scanner is my virus scan of choice and ive got a fairly clean system. Ive only once had to rebuild a windows system and that was due to me wanting to do a fresh install of a different windows OS. You dont have to periodically rebuild a windows machine in order to keep it running quickly.

With regards to the MSCONFIG suggestion. Look at the list and google for what each entry is. Only turn off the unessential things. Disable all may disable things such as pieces of hardware if they run software through this method and may disable various autoupdaters for virus checkers and anti spyware software. Disable all is not recommended.

A simliar thing you can do.(Only if you are familiar with regedit though!)
click start then run and type regedit.
Now you get a windows explorer style view. Go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER->Software->Microsoft->Windows->CurrentVersion (also look at HKEY_LOCLA_MACHINE->Software->Microsoft->Windows->CurrentVersion)

Here there are the folders Run and Run Once amongst other things. In these folders should be similar things to in MSCONFIG but i believe there may be extra entries. (from what ive seen some things may not always be shown in msconfig) Google up what these entries are. There may be entries designed to run programs that will recreate or reinfect a pc if a virus or certain spyware has previously got onto your system. Renaming them may help (rather than deleting them at first just incase they are actually required)

If you are unsure what an entry in either msconfig or regedit is its best not to get rid of it until your are sure what it is. You dont want to confuse your pc in your attempts to help it!

In your particular case you may have got rid of most of it but renaming the key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\System
"Wallpaper"=SZ:C:\WINDOWS\desktop.html

in regedit to something else perhaps

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\System
"OldWallpaper"=SZ:C:\WINDOWS\desktop.html

should allow you to get you old wallpaper back. You may then need to change your esolution to a different one then back again as after doing the last regedit some people have seen issues with transparency of windows but the resolution switch seems to cure it.

edit to add: You wouldnt have an application called spyaxe installed would you? Ive heard this is an anti spyware tool that can produce messages similar to the ones you are seeing. It can sometimes do this even when there is no spyware really present. Alledgedly this is a ploy to get you to buy the full version of the software. Its anothe rpiece of malware really and not a legit anti spyware tool it seems