Strange happenings just lately: 1) Modem has no audible sound to indicate dialing but display shows that it is verifying password. 2) Home Page keeps resetting to a 218* URL (which is a search category home page). 3) Hitting desktop icons like 'My Computer' will not display the appropriate window. 4) If another window does display, those icons will not work. 5) At times, porn site icons suddenly appear. I delete them but then another will appear. 6) The whole system slows down and when I press 'CTRL/ALT/DELETE', explorer task shows 'does not respond'. 7) Ending explorer task results in 'fatal error' blue screen. 8) At times, cannot shut down system because screen is black; then must hit off button. About two weeks ago, I downloaded and ran Spybot 1.3....could something have attached itself to the download? Maybe I checked an item shown by Spybot and it shouldn't have been removed???? Any help would be gratefully received...right now, my beloved computer is toast..... gary2736

run spybot in safe mode(pressing f8 when rebooting) install adaware se run that in safe mode have you any virus software installed? firewall? Gary

thx for quick reply! did not run in safe mode before... is adaware better/different than Spybot? have run McAfee scans before but not on regular basis....no firewall.... would running msinfo32 be in order? gary2736

Ad-Aware can find things SpyBot misses and vice versa. Nothing lost in having both to hand. If you have McAfee AV then update it and run it on a regular basis (more nasties about these days). When you are certain your machine is clean then download SpywareBlaster. It doesn't fix anything but keeps these non-virus nasties from getting in. Sygate Firewall (free) is a good compromise in terms of resources used and simplicity of use. They are no longer just for the paranoid. Lost your drift a bit on msinfo32. Fine, it gives System Info and other features. Was there some particular aspect of this you had in mind? Derek.W

do you mean you have done online scans before or have you got mcafee installed on your pc?,another firewall alternative is zone alarm(free) your system sounds a bit of a mess though so you need to sort that out before we look at prevention Gary

one important clarification: before problems started did your modem make an audible noise when connecting? if so is it silent now and still connecting to net and does the dial up window pop up at random times? Gary

thx to everyone who responded...i will download ad aware and run at my first opportunity....i did try running msinfo32 and set the registry back 3 days plus downloaded all recommended MS fixes for IE and it seems to have taken care of a lot of problems especially resetting home page and modem not working correctly. Can now click on icons ok. to garyhopkin: modem now audible but not before. no, dialup window only appeared when dialing. yes, i have done .dat scans using McAfee but not too often. my problem is i am not a real techie like some of you guys so the terminology is confusing ...i use Google a LOT for recommendations....again, thx.... gary2736