I have contracted the trojan.startpage virus. I have used Norton, Bullguard & several spyware programs to scan my computer. After seeral days of fighting this, they do not show an alert for this virus. I don't know if it is still present or not. I am still unable to set my starpage. It pops up as a search page, along with many pop-ups about being infected. How do I get rid of this thing and reset my strt page?

Download the MS Anti Spyware Beta, and use the restore feature to reset all the internet options in the system registry, and let it run a full spyware scan, then go to www.pandasoftware.com and perform the free active scan for virus infections. Steve

Thanks Steve, I tried the MS Anti Spyware. Detected no problems. Reset internet options. Worked momentarily, then reverted back to some search page and pop-ups. Could not run active scan @ pandsoft, search page would redirect page befor scan could start. THis thing has really got me baffled. Any other suggestions?

I still have not figured out how to reset IE startpage. Can anyone help me?

While you move across many forums, you may be adviced to download loads of adware & spyware detectors. My personal experience is none of them are going to help kill this issue. If you truly want to get rid of this startpage.trojan, will have to put some effort of your own. Startpage.trojan is the result of a file "sp.dll" in the temp folder which opens a startpage with caption "search for....". The file sp.dll is created by a dll file and an application file in system 32 folder both which differs in name from machines to machines. So there you are left with little chances to search by name. The only option remains is search by date (guess the date when symptoms started). There should be two files; a dll file which is associated to Explorer.exe and an exe file for which the date of creation would be same. Delete or move both the files. The problem should be resolved. BG

The advice from sangeos is good except that the exe file in my case was in the c:\ directory not the system32 directory. Also when trying to delete the dll file in win2000 you get a "file in use" message. To get round this we scanned the file with "trojan remover" available on http://www.simplysup.com/ (download and install the program then right click on file to be scanned) then choose the "delete file" option. Windows then shuts down. After restarting explorer is no longer hijacked. We deleted both the exe file and the dll from the recycle bin for sfafety. None of the adware,spybots,trojan removers or virus scanners would fix this trojan automatically - probably due to the "file in use" problem. Many thanks sangeos