I posted earlier about some viruses on my computer... and i deleted the files (i am praying that is all that needs to be done) but i came across this file that has repeatedly come up in spy bot. it is "pup" application. I could not delete it b/c it said that it was in use. Anyone know what this is????? and how to get rid of this. last question... will formatting this whole darn thing take care of all my problems????

Paul, See if the info at the link below is of any help. Adware.Winpup Tufenuf

Formatting seems pretty drastic. What you've got is a tenacious pest but its fixable. Go to your task manager and check to see if 'pup' is running. If it is close it. Then delete all of the files in your temporary internet files folder. Your going to have to search your c: drive and registry keys for the following: pup, winpup, sysu, internet optimizer, ddm, dd_m, and amcompat and delete them. Also check for a string of random numbers. I have encountered 2831667, 3644961, 1923769, 70399111, 819118657, or 35575503 and delete them. I suspect 'pup' randomly creates numbers so when you check your registry actually look to see if you see any string of numbers like the above in the folders containg 'pup', 'winpup', etc and then check your c: drive and registry for that\those number(s). I would strongly recommend taking a snapshot of your system using the system restore function under system tools before deleting ANYTHING. Also run MSCONFIG and see what you have running during startup.

don't format. boot in safe mode & delete it there.