pop ups while playing

[Kajer]

Since early yesterday I have been getting pop ups while not using a browser at all. I also get them when i am playing Everquest which is annoying the hell out of me cause it puts EQ in a window mode.
I currently have Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy to clean my pop up spyware. I continute to get them even when i run the 2 programs back to back.
There is something hidden on my system that keeps making the pop ups.
I downloaded a few files from a website which i think might have caused this problem. I ran a full System scan with Norton but didnt find any viruses. I deleted all of the files i downloaded and even cleaned them out of my recycle bin too. Any suggestions on what i can do to fix this problem once and for all.

oh yea i downloaded a pop up blocker in the mean time to get rid of most of them but some still get through.
I just want to fix this problem. Any help would be appreciated. thansks

[thehittmann]

this sounds like you have either an adware program on your system or it could be the windows messenger service. You can turn off the windows messenger service by typing mscongif into your run bar on start menu then un selecting the box that corrisponds. If it is adware you will need something like ad aware or hijackthis to remove it from your system

[Kajer]

i already did the messenger thing. got it turned off like i am supposed to.Adaware and spybot running and cleaning. still they keep coming.

[Kajer]

I updated the files for Spybot Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware and found about 90 more spyware files to be removed. Then it seemed to have stopped the pop ups.
For almost 3 hours exactly I received no pop ups.
Then i started getting a ton in a short amount of time. I reran the 2 spyware cleaning programs and found no more files still but the pop ups keep coming.
The pop up blocker is working but i wanna find out what is doing this and remove it. Anyone got any ideas?

[engine]

You need to check the registry to make sure that the entries are removed from there, and you may have to reboot to clear the currently-loaded files.

Additionally, check for hidden folders on your system. Some of these blighters sit there waiting for a prompt to run again and hey presto, you're back to where you were.

Study the sites you visit - make sure you're not downloading a fresh version of the spyware on each visit.

Check that the programs you're running on your machine havent come with a payload. Otherwise, every time you re-run a program, bingo, they're back.

[Kajer]

what do i look for when i am in the registry..i dont have any experience in that area.

[jbinbpt]

I also had a nasty that kept coming back. You don’t specify what operating system, but this is what I did with XP.

As the user is loading, press CTRL/ALT/DEL which starts the Task Manager.

Watch what is loading. There should be something that loads then disappears.

Write them down, then Google them to identify the processes.

You should stumble across the nasty there. You need to get rid of the nasty in the register. The directions should be on the page that Google returns.

jb

[Kajer]

I'll give that a try. thanks

edit

i tried it and only 3 appeared then disappeared.

MSNMSGR.EXE

USERINIT.EXE

SVSHOST.EXE (5 of these originally were there then 4 were left)

I googled them like you said and they are not the problem according to what i found.

any other ideas? :P thanks for helping. oh yea...and in the last 12 hours...i've gotten over 500 more popups. seems to be getting worse. i ran spybot and ad aware and both were still clean and thats running the updates too. and while they were running pop ups were coming still.

There's gotta be some way to get rid of this.
thanks again. any help is appreciated.

[jbinbpt]

I don't know what else to suggest, except to boot into safe mode and run spybot and adaware again. Perhaps that will work.

Do you get the popups in safe mode?

Google the other processes that the taskmanager shows as running also. Something has got to be there.

jb

[henry0]

Could you remember when those bugs started to show up?
if so
back up your new entries from that date up to today

then restore the registry to the date before the events

or use XP capability to restore the system to a specific date

Problem: Sorry, I do not remember the "How to"
but you can find it
good luck