Many many problems at once, yay.../sigh

[Bahamut2000X]

Well just yesterday I got a new hard drive set up and have been using it as my main system. Well now I'm having more problems then my old one. Firstly my spy bot program freezes everytime I attempt to remove spyware it's found, and on top of that I get a pop up that always seems to appear while I'm on FFXI (and thus booting me from the game) and on top of that it seems to by pass my pop up blocker.

I think it's spy ware causing the pop up thing, but it's no good till I fix my spy bot, so does anyone have a clue how to fix this?

[Baloki]

More RAM?

[Bahamut2000X]

Wait, could that seriously be the problem?

I'm not so sure cause that was the only program running at the time I tried to remove the spy ware.

[Baloki]

How much RAM do you have and which version of Windows are you running?

[Bahamut2000X]

I think I have about 128 MB worth of RAM. And I'm currently running windows 2k.

[Baloki]

That probably would be a bit slow, try upgrading it to 256 mb's and see if you get a speed increase, could be some other reason though so its worth waiting for other people to answer :)

[Bahamut2000X]

Oh ya also about the pop up, well just copied down the info about it this time, and well I'm fairly sure it's a virus in disquise, but well, it says it's a security monitor from windows, saying I need to patch.

Of course the entire thing sounds odd enough as I'm supposed to keep the pop up open, go to the site, then click ok on the pop up once I've done all that, in order to "protect" my system.

Well I'm fairly sure it's spy ware, but dunno as I did manage to get my spyware to go off a little before and remove some things. But this pop up still won't go away.

[Baloki]

Did you disable System Restore and then scan it for spyware and virus'?

[Bahamut2000X]

Ummm...errr...maybe I should mention I'm fairly incompetant when it comes to technology.

[Baloki]

I'll let clout explain it as I'm not too sure about Windows 2000

[Endless]

Next time the pop up comes up, take a screenshot, and open the task manager (ctrl-alt-del) and take screenshots of the processes' list (or type it down, whichever you prefer). That way we can prolly see what causes it.

Also, get ad-aware and run it, it might be able to catch it where ss&d dies, and try one of the online virus scan (http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ for example).

[Bahamut2000X]

Actually I managed to get rid of the pop up by blocking one of the processes running, using my fire wall. So the pop up should no longer be a problem.

But I still can't use my spy bot to remove the spy ware on my system, and I don't have any clue as to how to do that.

[Leeza]

Also, get ad-aware and run it, it might be able to catch it where ss&d dies, and try one of the online virus scan (http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ for example).
Whenever I try to run HouseCall I get this message.

<i>HouseCall (for Netscape) installation
It appears that the required components for HouseCall are not currently installed on your computer.

To install HouseCall, do the following steps:

1. download this program ;
2. run it;
3. restart your Netscape browser.</i>

Since I don't have Netscape I don't understand why this happens, but it happens every time. I think HouseCall is needed along with Spybot and Adaware because it catches things that these other two don't. I could run it from one particular site before, but I forgot to save the address when I switched computers and reformatted. Anyone have any ideas as to why I keep getting this message? It happens on both of my computers.

[Endless]

Using IE or Mozilla?

[Leeza]

I'm using Firefox. I'm sure that I've tried it with both before, but after trying with IE just now it seemed to work. I would rather not have to use IE.

[Baloki]

Its an Active X Compontent most likely meaning you have to use IE, try getting a free anti-virus, theres hundreads and then you don't need to go online to do a virus scan each time. And if your after a Spyware detector that picks up the things S&D missed get Adaware, its free and updated once a week :)

[Leeza]

I have Spybot and Adaware, but when I did have HouseCall before and I ran it right after the other two, it picked up things that they did not.

[Baloki]

Fair enough, then your probably stuck using IE while running it :(