every time i shut down ISHOST.exe - DLL INITIALISATION FAILURE -because windows is shutting down. comes up, and i have run checks with online scanners and it has come up with 55 "pests". also, random popups occur even if i am not using internet explorer. what can i do to remove this??

Please post a Hijack This log so that the files associated with the virus/spyware/hijacker can be identified. Please download HJTsetup.exe from this link http://www.thespykiller.co.uk/files/HJTsetup.exe to your desktop. Doubleclick on the HJTsetup.exe icon on your desktop. By default it will install to C:\Program Files\Hijack This. Continue to click "next" in the setup dialogue boxes until you get to the "Select Addition Tasks" dialogue. Put a check by "Create a desktop icon" then click "Next" again. Continue to follow the rest of the prompts from there. At the final dialogue box click "Finish" and it will launch Hijack This. Click on the "Do a system scan and save a logfile" button. It will scan and the log should open in notepad. Click on "Edit > Select All" then click on "Edit > Copy" to copy the entire contents of the log and post it in this thread. Do not fix anything yet unless you know what you are doing. This is a powerful tool that can crash the computer if used improperly.

your random popups are probably messenger popups...google for Shoot the messenger and safley disable them. Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

You may have more going on than meets the eye. READ ALL OF THIS...and good luck. I got browser redirected a couple days ago and had ishost.exe install as well as Safety bar and other pests show up. I'll post a list here of what I found and removed. I use AVG for virus protection. It did warn me about a few of them at the time of infestation but then the AVG message disappeared before I could act and AVG did not find them by manually running a virus scan. Luckily I wrote the names down as they appeared and found them myself. DO POST a Hijack this log for analysis just in case there are some obvious things. My Hi-jack this log was clean except for 2 entries for safety bar which I removed. Nothing else showed....but my browser hijack continued until I started analyzing running processes and narrowed down the problem. Even after things APPEARED normal....I still found bad files which I even as of today. ** LOOK FOR THESE FILES and remove them. Some may be running and you will need to stop the processes before manual deletion. I'll explain that in a minute. FIRST... press CTRL-ALT-DEL to enter windows task manager and look for found the following processes. ishost.exe issearch.exe ismon.exe isnotify.exe If you find any of the above or all 4 and try to stop the processes with task manager... the one you stop will likely restart as long as one of the others is still active. Its a vicious cycle. Exit Windows Task manager. Run Hijack this...but do NOT Scan. you want to use the process manager. If you don't have Hijack this then get the latest version at majorgeeks.com. I think its 1.99.1 In order to stop all 4 of those processes at once you need to use the TOOLS in hijack this. There is a built in process manager that will allow you to select multiple processes at once where windows task mgr only lets you select one at a time. Run HIJACK THIS...then select "Misc Tools Section" and open the "Process Manager." Look for the 4 bad processes I posted ABOVE. If you have ISHOST you probably have the others running also. While holding the left CTRL key use the LEFT mouse button to check off all of the processes you want to stop. Then release the CTRL key and click Kill Process. All of the bad processes should be stopped now and not restart. Next - those processes you stopped are .exe files and you need to find those bad .exe files and delete them. Go to windows START Menu - SEARCH (or find) FILES and FOLDERS and type in the box that says "search for files or folders" You can only type in ONE name at a time. It may find other files with similar letters so you'll have to look through the list of files for the one you want. Once you find the bad files right click the mouse on the filename then look for DELETE then left click to delete it. Search for... ISHOST ISSEARCH ISMON ISNOTIFY After killing these processes and deleting the files...my browser again went to the correct home page MSN. **** MORE BAD FILES to look for! **** I had a microsoft warning about SVCHOST last night 2 days following removal of the above files. I found it may be related to blaster worm w32 or a variant. Scanning with symantec w32 blaster removal tool found nothing.... HOWEVER...also found these today with the same date so they're probably all related. Do a search for these. Just type in the word LOAD in search files and folders and see if any come up. If they do... delete em. FILOAD.EXE HILOAD.EXE JOKLOAD.EXE WERTLOAD.EXE MELOAD.EXE BARMALOAD.EXE TELSLOAD.EXE PRXLOAD.EXE PRXLOAD.EXE also search for these and delete them if you find any. JOKSETUP TELSETUP WERTSETUP BARMASETUP The only one I found info on was PRXLOAD.exe which is a known trojan downloader. The rest came up empty on internet searches so they must be new. AVG did not find any of them but did warn of Hiload Meload and Jokload at the time they showed up but then AVG did not find them on manual scan. Kaspersky found only Prxload.exe which I deleted manually. Just because you see a clean Hijack this log and Viruscan is clean....does NOT mean all is well. These things are getting sneakier all the time. Look for the files I mentioned and hopefully...if you find any of them...thats all there are. Be very careful of entering personal information, passwords etc on your PC if theres even a chance of infection still. Good luck.

Sorry... forgot one important thing! BEFORE deleting viruses, trojans etc... in windows XP you first need to turn off the "Windows Restore" feature...otherwise the same files you're deleting will return if you do a restore later. Also...when looking for bad files, trojans, viruses etc....dont forget to look in Add/Remove programs too. Sometimes things like unwanted tool bars etc are installed without your approval and show up in add/remove programs. You should uninstall these unwanted programs BEFORE deleting any bad files. Sorry for the timing here...but theres no edit feature and I forgot to add the info in my first posing. ** Turn OFF system restore. Fix/uninstall/delete what you need...then reboot and turn system Restore Back ON. Here is how to disable and restart system restore in Windows XP. Don't forget to turn it back ON when you're done. SYSTEM RESTORE By default, System Restore is turned on in Windows XP. It is a powerful tool that generally should not be turned off. Manual steps to turn off System Restore To manually turn off System Restore, follow these steps: 1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties. 2. Click the System Restore tab. 3. Click to select the Turn off System Restore check box (or the Turn off System Restore on all drives check box), and then click OK. 4. Click Yes when you receive the prompt to the turn off System Restore. Manual steps to turn on System Restore To turn on System Restore, follow these steps: 1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties. 2. Click the System Restore tab. 3. Click to clear the Turn off System Restore check box (or the Turn off System Restore on all drives check box), and then click OK. Above info was found at Microsoft site here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;%5BLN%5D;310405

thanks. all is working now. cheers for all the help guys