I don't know what happened to my original post but here we go. I was surfing through a website when the prompt came up to telling me to install their activeX control in order to access site properly...well I know that's a big no-no so I click the close button and when I did, a dialog box came up that read "script loading" and a load bar started filling in. I tried to hit cancel but by then it was to late. Next I noticed ads for spyware (spysheriff) and a red icon with a white "X" in the system tray along with the spysheriff icon. Several windows began opening overriding my popup blocker so I shut my machine down and rebooted. When my system came back up it was dramatically slower and then it locked up and went to the blue screen of death.....damn. I restarted on safe mode, removed spysheriff, and two other programs from the add/remove list that "suddenly" appeared called "Network Monitor" and "Command Service".....they all seem to be gone. Next I found the Cowabunga by OIN software in the add/remove list. I googled for results and that's what brought me here to this site. I hope someone can help me safely remove this thing from my system. Please Help.

According to Experts Exchange (another forum) this is a tough one. The first suggestion is to try the OIN uninstaller which you can get here http://www.outerinfo.com/OiUninstaller.exe The next is: Use Killbox or Unlocker in Safe Mode to remove hard to remove file. Killbox to remove stuborn files. Use the option delete on reboot http://www.scancomplete.com/download/killbox/ OR Unlocker http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4660.html If you cannot delete the file, disable it. Right click on the file and select Properties > Security > Advanced. Uncheck "Inherent from parent" and remove other permissions. If you are using Windows XP Home, you need to access the Security tab from Safe Mode. If using Windows XP Pro and security tab is not available, go to any folder and select Tools > Folder Options > View. Uncheck "Use simple file sharing". If that does not work than I suggest posting a Hijack this log (HJT)here: http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/ http://www.castlecops.com/forums.html

When stuff like that happen, disconect from the internet ASAP.

Here is a suggestion. I had the same problem as the one you are describing above and I spent many hours trying various techniques, software, etc, even the ones mentioned above to no avail. I am somewhat computer savvy, but alot of what I did was trial and error. I will say that for me, all of the antivirus programs you can throw at did not detect this spyware/adware, whatever it is. Also a tip, stay in Safe whenever possible otherwise you will get bombarded left and right. Anyways to get to the point. Before I acquired this unwanted guest, I also had installed a free version of Mcafee virus protection on my computer. It had previously in my files on my comp, so I gave it a whirl. Now, after trying everything possible, such as Spybot search and destroy, avast antivirus, and adaware, which by the way are good programs. But I decided to uninstall the Mcafee program on my computer. I rebooted in regular mode after and low and behold no problems. No I am not saying that Mcafee itself was the culprit, what I am saying is that once I got rid of the program, the problems went away. So, my suggestion is to not trust any program that you might have. If there is something that you had installed be sure to make sure it is legit. I am sure that it is why it was undetected on my computer, because it jacked a ride on the Mcafee program. Hopefully this will give you an additional option when nothing else works.

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