Kazaa and Ad/spyware

April 4, 2004 12:17 PM

Ad/Spyware problem. My fiancee was looking for some freeware and when she installed Kazaa (not lite) a bunch of programs were installed. We've tried everything we can think of and can't get rid of something called media-search.net. (more inside)

The computer is WinXP and we first ran SpyBot and AdAware to get rid of them, then did
add/remove programs to get rid of the above items. Then we restarted the computer and they
came back, internet bookmarks and all. We also attempted to find the programs on the computer
by looking in C:/Program Files but haven't had any luck.

Any other pointers or suggestions on getting rid of these programs that we haven't tried yet? Or if anyone has stumbled across media-search.net before.

-----------------------

The bookmarts it adds are all for search.media-search.net.

They are in folders called -Autos-, -Business Directory-, -Communications-,
-Computers and Internet-, -Entertainment-, -Games-, -Health and Fitness-,
-Music-, -Shopping-, -Sports-, -Travel-

The weird programs that keep being addes are (B) MS-C wordfinder,
MS IE assistant, MS B help, MS.C help and Your MS.C Assistant

posted by graventy to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Try Spybot - it finds apyware/trojans and gives you the list - you decide what you want to delete.

A quick way to get rid of the browser bookmarks would be to go through c:/documents and settings/username/Favourites to delete the folders in one go.
posted by SpaceCadet at 12:29 PM on April 4, 2004

Try Hijack This. There's no single 100% inclusive spyware remover, so you need a combo-shot.
posted by signal at 12:35 PM on April 4, 2004

You may want to dig through doxdesk - a great resource for "unsolicited commercial software."
posted by ecrivain at 12:35 PM on April 4, 2004

I also recommend Hijack This - you can kill all the unwanted startup apps this way.
posted by SpaceCadet at 12:50 PM on April 4, 2004

third for hijack this. there's also a forum set up where your can copy and paste you problem and have it looked at by forumers. plus, you're problem is probably already solved if you look through the forum a bit.
posted by bob sarabia at 1:20 PM on April 4, 2004

ehh...."where YOU can copy and paste YOUR problem"
posted by bob sarabia at 1:22 PM on April 4, 2004

Thanks guys. Bob, you rock, as there's a thread in that forum that fixed everything.

AskMe keeps working miracles.
posted by graventy at 1:37 PM on April 4, 2004

you're welcome :) that forum has helped me more than once
posted by bob sarabia at 3:07 PM on April 4, 2004

You might want to try starting Windows in Safe Mode and then running both Spybot and Ad Aware.
posted by Hall at 3:35 PM on April 4, 2004