Julie said:
Good day to you. I do appreciate your reply. Let me make one thing clear
to you before I continue. I am not what you would label as "computer
smart", so when I visited the abcPager website, it was very alien to me. I
am running Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit version. I will also add that
since this problem has appeared, Lavasoft Ad-Aware has ceased to operated
and will not reinstall. Contacting Lavasoft is my next move, just in case
the two are related in any way. I did a search of my C drive for abcPager
and Spinning Hat Software with zero results. I hope I have supplied you
with enough information. Thanks again.
It's odd because the Spinning Hat website seems to be very old (1999). I
can't imagine a home user would ever install this software. It seems to be
very specifically targeted for network administrators. Certainly it isn't
anything you would ever have installed yourself and I've never seen
anything like this come preinstalled on a computer.
With the other problems you mention, I think I'd start scanning for viruses
and malware. I'll give you the usual troubleshooting steps but since you
say up front that you're not "computer smart" (which is not at all the same
thing as being smart!), you probably should take the machine to a local
computer professional and have him/her take a look at what's happening.
Even if you do go through all the steps below, you're not going to know
what you're seeing. Don't use someone from BigComputerStore/GeekSquad; get
recommendations from family, friends, colleagues.
Go through these general malware removal steps systematically -
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware
Include scanning with David Lipman's Multi_AV and follow instructions to do
all scans in Safe Mode. Please see the special Notes regarding using
Multi_AV in Vista.
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Multi-AV - instructions
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/sicherheit/35905/multi_av_scanning_tool.html
- download site
The site is in German but David's tool is in English so don't let that worry
you. Scroll all the way down to almost the bottom of the page and you'll
see a box titled "Infos Zum Download - Multi-AV Scanning Tool". You'll see
"Download von www pctipp.ch" and the live link to download Multi_AV.
You can also check to see if there are targeted removal steps for your
malware here:
Bleeping Computer removal how-to's -
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/forum55.html
When all else fails, run HijackThis and post your log in one of the
specialty forums listed at the first link above (not here, please).
Not all tools used will work in Vista and you will need to run them
elevated. If you are unable to remove the infection by following the
general steps, register at one of the HijackThis forums as suggested.
Malke