Address bar search not working - Help

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Tiedt
  • Start date Start date
J

John Tiedt

I had an attempt at browser take over, but thwarted the attempt.
I used to be able to keyin some text in the address bar and it would search
the text thru MSN. Does not work any more.

I have ran Spybot and adaware and fixed all it found - no change.

I have renamed hosts and lmhosts files and unchecked the allow third party
extensions - no change.

Anyone have anymore suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

J. Tiedt
 
John Tiedt said:
I had an attempt at browser take over, but thwarted the attempt.
I used to be able to keyin some text in the address bar and it would search
the text thru MSN. Does not work any more.

I have ran Spybot and adaware and fixed all it found - no change.

I have renamed hosts and lmhosts files and unchecked the allow third party
extensions - no change.

Anyone have anymore suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

J. Tiedt
Click to expand...

lmhosts.sam is a windows file.

Courtesy Jim Byrd, MS-MVP:

This is a CoolWebSearch variant. Do the following:

Download and run: http://www.merijn.org/files/cwshredder.zip to remove the
parasite. Be sure to close all instances of IE and OE. Alwasys download a
fresh copy as this program is updated frequently.

Then download and run:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/iegentabs.reg to restore your
tabs and remove any restrictions that the parasite has put in place.

However, this also indicates that you may have acquired some other malware
along the way. If you go to this page at Jim Eshelman's site, here:
http://aumha.org/a/noads.htm and wait a little bit (be patient), an analysis
of a number of possible parasites on your machine will be made to help you
identify and remove them. NOTE: You will need to disable Ad Blocking in Zone
Alarm 3.x, if present or any other Ad Blocking software which interferes
with Java Scripting for this scan to work. You should get a message between
the two lines of **** giving the results of the scan.

Get Ad-Aware 6.0, Build 181 or later, here:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/. Update and run this regularly
to get rid of most "spyware/hijackware" on your machine. If it has to fix
things, be sure to re-boot and rerun AdAware again and repeat this cycle
until you get a clean scan. The reason is that it may have to remove
things which are currently "in use" before it can then clean up others.

Another excellent program for this purpose is SpyBot Search and Destroy
available here: http://security.kolla.de/ SpyBot Support Forum here:
http://www.net-integration.net/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi. I recommend
using both normally. After fixing things with SpyBot S&D, be sure to
re-boot and rerun SpyBot again and repeat this cycle until you get a clean
"no red" scan. The reason is that SpyBot sometimes has to remove things
which are currently "in use" before it can then clean up others.



Note that sometimes you need to make a judgement call about what these
programs report as spyware. See here, for example:
http://www.imilly.com/alexa.htm

Once you get this cleaned up, you might want to consider installing the
SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard here to help prevent this kind of thing from
happening in the future:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/spywareblaster.html (Prevents malware Active
X installs) (BTW, SpyWare Blaster is not memory resident ... no CPU or
memory load - but keep it updated) The latest version as of this writing
will prevent installation or prevent the malware from running if it is
already installed, and it provides information and fixit-links for a variety
of parasites.

http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html (Monitors for attempts to
install malware) Both Very Highly Recommended
 
I have done all the things in Mac's post and still no change. My machine was
given a clean bill of health from cwshredder, adaware and spybot.
Everything else seems fine I just cannot search from the address bar.

On another XP machine when you keyin text to the address bar (using "Mad
Cow") it gives the following:
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?srch=105&FORM=AS5&q="Mad+Cow" which
works.

On my machine I get the following:
http:///? "Mad%20Cow" which obviously does not work.

This is real puzzle..... anyone else got an idea.

J. Tiedt
 
John Tiedt said:
I have done all the things in Mac's post and still no change. My machine was
given a clean bill of health from cwshredder, adaware and spybot.
Everything else seems fine I just cannot search from the address bar.

On another XP machine when you keyin text to the address bar (using "Mad
Cow") it gives the following:
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?srch=105&FORM=AS5&q="Mad+Cow" which
works.

On my machine I get the following:
http:///? "Mad%20Cow" which obviously does not work.

This is real puzzle..... anyone else got an idea.

J. Tiedt
Click to expand...

Check your settings at IE>tools>internet options>advanced>scroll to search?
 
Hey John,

That same problem has happened to my computer, it was mywebsearch.com
that caused it. Becareful with ad-aware, I read today that ad-aware
from lavasoft can cause pop-ups to appear and they apparently lay the
blame on some spyware program, sounds fishy to me. I would un-install
ad-aware if I were you, until they resolve their issues.

Gerry
IBM PC Specialist
 
Unfortunately, I have the exact same problem. I cleaned
house and things are great now. except that one
problem. I've even installed new search registry's. It
keeps adding the http header to the search word. Please
let me know if you find any solutions.
 
Thanks to all. I re-imaged my machine with my December 1st ghost image. All
is fine now.

Thanks

J. Tiedt
 
Gerry O said:
Hey John,

That same problem has happened to my computer, it was mywebsearch.com
that caused it. Becareful with ad-aware, I read today that ad-aware
from lavasoft can cause pop-ups to appear and they apparently lay the
blame on some spyware program, sounds fishy to me. I would un-install
ad-aware if I were you, until they resolve their issues.

Gerry
IBM PC Specialist
Click to expand...

Nonsense! Where did you read this?
 
I don't see that in advanced, but mine is doing the exact
same thing. I've always typed in the address bar and hit
ENTER and it searched with MSN. If I have AutoComplete
on then a long white bar appears below the address bar
with an option "Search for", if I clicked on it, it new I
was searching as well. Now it doesn't see either as a
search. It puts the http:// header in front of it and
attempts to go the the page. Obviously there is no page
http://shoes or http://Search for shoes. I
reinstalled XP Pro and Internet Explorer and it just kept
the same settings. I've seen the identical problem on
other posts as well and no viable solution. It's only an
annoyance, but it's a big annoyance.
 
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