frustrated

[Quintz]

Ok, I found the msblast on this computer, and went through all the steps, or thought I have, that are found in forums of getting rigd of it. I went to symnaptec and used thier blasterfix program, then went right to the patch on ms site. I also went through some instructions that had you search and "destroy" exe programs like "mxblast.exe", "teekids.eve", "mslaugh.exe" and a couple others. The problem I'm having is that there is something that wants to sign onto the internet (this comp is on a dial up, no need for broadband here) and also, I am finding in "msbalst.exe" in the startup section of msconfig. There are many processes running on this comp when i hit ctrl-alt-del, so I'm not sure if there's a proggie that is wanting to update itself or report. I've tried to shut down some of the unkown processes, but to no avail. Has anyone seen/heard of something like this? Oh, I am on a Dell dim 4400, looks like a pent. 4 running at 1.6ghz with 256 ram running windows XP 02 home edition.

[Miz]

Have you scanned for spyware? If not, download, install, immediately update and then run Spybot and/or AdAware (you can use them both.) Let whichever one you choose clean up any spyware it finds.

Then turn off XP's unnecessary services. It takes a little time but it's well worth it in terms of better system performance and online security.

There are numerous guides online for which services to turn off, which to set to manual and which to leave on automatic but I've found Black Viper's site the easiest to read...and the links to explanations of each service are handy

[Quintz]

Thanks for your tip, and I ran ad-aware through it. No good though, still getting the message. Right now I'm just trying to find all the programs that would want to auto update them selves to see which one is the culprit. Any other suggestions would be glady appreciated.