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  #1  
Old 05-23-2004
Newcomer, in training
 
Member since: May 2004, 1 posts
about:blank

Can anyone help me with a nasty little program that has cropped up on my computer. It has defaulted my Inernet Explorer to the home page "about:blank"
I thought I had identified it as a file in System32 on Windows XP. I managed to delete that after much effort with Trojan Remover, but the deletion has not stopped the default page readjusting to "about:blank' The page that opens wants me to go to SpyWare Nuker 2004 and download. This is obviously an input of spyware and not a removal. Has anyone got any ideas where this demon is hiding on my computer and how I can terminate it. I run AVG Grisoft which identified the "child.dll" file in System32 but as I said having deleted that this web page keeps coming back.
Thanks for any help
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  #2  
Old 05-23-2004
TechSpot Paladin
 
Location: Arkansas, USA
Member since: Dec 2002, 1,389 posts
System specs
I've done a Google on this problem and you aren't alone. The best I can tell from the search is this is a version of CoolWebSearch, and just about all the fixes I saw didn't work, it's VERY hard to get rid of. The ones that did get rid of it, called for some very complicated work to get rid of things.

Until someone here comes up with something better, might I suggest doing a system restore to before this problem started.

Also, if you haven't already, download Ad-aware, Spybot and CWShredder,(all free). You can do a Google for these and find where to download them. Then, delete all your Temp. files and clear your cache, and Recycle bin. If you've already tried the system restore and it didn't work, turn the restore feature off and clear it, (you won't be able to restore to an earlier point though), after doing all this re-enable it.

Now run Ad-aware and Spybot, delete whatever they find, and reboot into safe mode and run CWShredder.

Try all this and see what happens. If this doesn't help, download Hijack This, run it and post the results here, maybe someone can recognize something that will help.

Having written all the above, I'm not really that smart, I picked all this up from Google. But, all the other solutions I saw were VERY, VERY complicated, and you could mess up things worse that they already are if you were not careful. What I've posted above is very safe to do.

Good luck, hope this solves your problem.

Last edited by olefarte; 05-23-2004 at 12:04 PM.
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  #3  
Old 05-23-2004
MrGaribaldi's Avatar
TechSpot Ambassador
 
Location: Babylon 5, Grid Epsilon
Member since: Feb 2002, 2,802 posts
Re: about:blank

I'm not quite sure if this'll fix your homepage problem, but it should fix your problem with child.dll

Here is a description of what you must do to get rid of it.

It is actually a spam program which sends of quite a few emails every hour from your computer.


Hopefully, it's also the one who changes your homepage...
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  #4  
Old 05-23-2004
Rick's Avatar
TS Special Forces
 
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Member since: Feb 2002, 4,841 posts
The problem here is, there are so many different things that cause that behavior.

You should download a program called HijackThis and scan your system with it. It gives a list of currently running processes, questionable registry settings and add-ons. Post your results here.

I deal with spyware everyday and I could probably spot the problem as soon as I look at it.

Last edited by Rick; 05-23-2004 at 03:51 PM.
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