My parents XP machine had developed dodgy popups I downloaded what I thought was Lavasoft's Adaware (from www.adaware.com) but it turned out to be SpyNuke. I realised it was dodgy after it started to download, so I cancelled it. (yeah, I know...) Now whenever the PC's online the download appears and Task Manager only clears it momentarily. I then downloaded the real Adware and Spybot which identified and deleted Spynuke. As soon as it's back online the download appears again (and now even more popups). How can I get rid of this short of wiping the hard disk? Any help appreciated.

First, use System Restore to go back a day before you downloaded spynuke. You say that you know, so I won't comment on spynuke, other than to say spynuke messes up ie. Download Adaware and Spybot on another pc and burn them to a cd. Install and run them from safemode on the infected pc (after the system restore) and then restart the pc. Update both programs and run them again. You can get both programs from the download page of wilders.org.

Also, if the above does not work, there may be manual removal instructions. We can also try Hijack This.

Stage one a success, many thanks. Hoping a fresh install and run of Spybot or Adaware cleans up the rest of it.