Santa

Well my parents were using the computer, and surprise surprise, we suddenly have quite a bit of spyware. There are a few popup ads, but the most popular ones are rogue anti spyware that tell you, "Download this thing and youll get rid of your spyware!".

I have used Lavasoft's adaware program, but even after it "deleting" the spyware, i still get these popups. I also tried a system restore back to a date where we didnt have spyware, but it still persists. Im not really sure what to do from here, so any help would be appreciated.

Anospa

Ad-aware and spybot search and destroy work real well together. Also, if you can't find stuff, go into safe mode and do a scan for stuff there. After that, and still have problems, run hijackthis, and post your log on a forum somewhere and people will help you out about what your problem(s) might/may be.

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Acreo Aeneas

System restore is next to useless against malicious software.

Have you run Spybot S&D to help clean out the pesky buggers? I often find it catches more than Ad-Adware does.

It is best to run both within Safe-Mode. It's faster and safer.

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icky

I find Spybot takes care of everything perfectly. Everything, that is, aside from virii/worms. Do a virus scan and make sure you're clean. Sometimes, you've been infected and there is a backdoor onto your system for installing adware.

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Peace through fear... since 1947!

loyalguard

Following all the advice per these guys has kept me spy/adware free for two years now:

MajorGeeks' Malware Removal Guide

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|TG| LoyalGuard

ThePenguineer

I had your exact same problems a few weeks ago. Some pop-ups for WinAntiSpyware or something like that, right? It's apparently part of some package of regenerating ad-ware that Spybot and Ad-Aware wasn't able to completely get rid of for me. The reason your system restore won't work is that they create a faulty system restore that tricks you into thinking you've restarted to a safe setting. Instead, it just reboots the Ad-ware. Even if you restart to an even early system point (like I did) and stop the pop-ups, you'll still notice rogue services running that bog down your computer. Those services are meant to trick you into believing you need their fake spyware to speed your computer back up again.

I used VundoFix to finally get rid of everything. It's small and quick to run and finally cleaned-up everything.

If you want to make sure that you got everything, I would also suggest WinPatrol to help you track down what files are causing your problems. It really helps to pick up the hidden files that were installed and you didn't know about. If it is Vundo stuff, they'll have a bunch of random names and will be installed (8-10 files) at the same time. Check WinPatrol before and after you run things to see what's still there. WinPatrol will also notify you of stuff in the future when it tries to install.

Anyways, good luck and get some better anti-stuff protection! (When my stuff got installed, it rang a siren!)

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Trooper

Another good program not mentioned is the windows defender. I have run both spy bot and Ad aware then run defender and found things the other 2 missed. And Defender is updated with windows updates. I have found that most spy ware takes 2 programs to get rid of.

And one more thing, dont ever try to install the program that the spyware is trying to get you to buy. Ive had 5 or 6 family members do that and it just messes the PC up even more then it already was.

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that sounds like a good idea trooper.
-Vulcan

tatersalad

A great programme to beat spyware: a Linux distro!

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Santa

Last night i just typed in the fake error message into google, and came up with this site http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic17258.html

My problem is now gone