spyware help!

[kash1355]

so one day my computer is perfectly fine .. and the next day, bam! im hit wit all this spyware that i cant get rid of. Ive kept my computer safe from spyware by using spybot and adaware. I'm not computer illiterate so i know how to get rid spyware but i dunno whats goin on now...

Spysherrif keeps comin up on my computer and my desktop wallpaper is either at a warning screen or it stays blue. The problems go away when i use adaware (most of them at least) but when i reboot my computer, the garbage just comes back! What can i do to get rid of all this garbage because i need my computer to be safe when i decide to use nettelller,and i hope the answer is not to format my computer. please help

[networkguy]

What is your OS? If you are running windows 2000/XP go to the microsoft home page and download the free microsoft anti spyware utility, make sure to update it before you run it. Another tool you can try that is very effective is spysweeper, www.webroot.com/downloads. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

NG

[neil01]

I know that it is a bit late now, but for future, I would recommend keeping regular complete back-ups of your system, so that if you do become infected you can go back to a time before you were.

Yes there are programs/procedures to get rid of the spyware, but sometimes it is so involved that it is quicker to just restore your PC. (Don't forget apply any updates that are after the date of the image)

If a PC does become infected, and you decide to clean it rather than recover, it is often a good idea to disable system restore (if you have it) before you start (as well as make a backup just in case it goes horribly wrong), yes you will loose the restore points, but various items of malware have hidden in there, ready to re-infect once you clean the main OS.

[woodpusher]

Spyware is browser specific...i.e. IE.
Try using a different browser such as Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/).