[MadAnthony1776]

Good Post. Personal experience with this problem. My wife didn't keep up the anti-virus and anti-spyware programs she had on her computer. As much as her daughter and I told her to run scans and update the software, she just didn't take the time to do it. It got to the point finally that the computer basically quit working. I tried running the anti-virus software and it wouldn't even run. In this case I got lucky. Her daughter came over and we finally got the anti-spyware to run and there were thousands of files infected with spyware. Then the anti-virus program would run. When all was said and done we were able to get the computer back up and running but one of my favorite programs will not run on this computer now because at least one file is quarantined and Gateway did not supply the Windows XP disc with the computer when we bought it so that I could reinstall the files I need. My wife did learn a valuable lesson though. She now keeps the anti-virus and anti-spyware definitions up-to-date.

[dennisw]

Anti virus programs come first for me. Spy ware can endanger your security but for the most part it's just a dang nuisance and intrusion into "my space".

[R. Scott]

Her daughter came over and we finally got the anti-spyware to run and there were thousands of files infected with spyware.

I recently had to put my computer in the shop and use a loner. The loner had not been cleaned up or restored – and it seems the previous user was very heavy into Internet games and porn.
The first thing I did was delete several dozen bookmarks and run Norton. Norton removed a few dozen files. I kicked back and forgot about it – until CoolWeb started showing up as my homepage. I prefer Google. I then ran several other virus and spyware programs – and found over 1,200 infected and malicious files. Several could not be removed either automatically or manually. I went to safe mode as the administrator and ran everything again – which resulted in eliminating all but one file. I had to go into the registry and close every program one at a time until I found it, a very long and laborious process. When I found it I could not delete it but had to replace it with a dummy program.