Gcsacleaner and Desktop Search

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pam
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Pam

I've had the AS Beta software on my computer for several
weeks now with no problem. However, over the last week,
something strange has happened. Now, when I power up,
the process stalls at the Welcome screen. I can get past
that by doing a ctl-alt-del. The desktop then comes up
but the normal icons don't appear. If I go to Task
Manager, it shows a program named gcsAcleaner running.
If I close that the icons appear. A small pop-up window
saying Search the Web appears at the right bottom
corner. It doesn't prevent me from doing normal tasks
and hides when I move my cursor away. If I go to Task
Manager, it shows a program called Desktop Search running
and it can be closed. Running the AS scan shows some
hits but nothing with these names. I clean up whatever
is there but it comes back the next time I power up.

Any ideas, anyone.
Thanks,
Pam
 
Can you try doing a full deep scan in safe mode? press the F8 function key
before the first windows screen appears.

There are manual cleaning instructions here:

http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=453090748

for something which at least on the surface resembles what you are seeing

Symantec also has removal details here:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/spyware.isearch.html

However, these removals are significantly complex. Trend Micro claims to
detect several variants of this critter, so a safer approach might be to try
the Trend Micro online scan:

http://housecall.trendmicro.com This antivirus scan has been expanded to
cover spyware as well, and it removes what it finds.
 
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