Windows XP Home Edition 2002 2.0 GHz w/ 256 MB of RAM Hi everyone. I hope that I can clear in describing what the problem is with 3 points. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, thank you for being patient and reading this through. First, I ran McAfee Virus Scan and Spybot. So far it says I have no viruses. The problem is that pop up ads keep coming up every time I open Internet Explorer. Second, this is what I have found to be on my Task Manager list: (The one that looks like its causing the trouble I think is IEHost.EXE, but I'm not sure) alg.exe LOCAL SERVICE AutoUpdate.exe Owner Avconsol.exe SYSTEM Avsynmgr.exe SYSTEM BackWeb-137903.exe Owner CEWMDM55.exe Owner csrss.exe SYSTEM DDCMan.exe Owner dpi.exe Owner eber.exe Owner explorer.exe Owner hpgs2wnd.exe Owner hpgs2wnf.exe Owner hpobrt07.exe Owner hpoevm07.exe Owner hposts07.exe Owner hpsysdrv.exe Owner IEHost.EXE Owner iexplore.exe Owner jaomp.exe Owner KBD.EXE Owner Loader.exe Owner Isass.exe SYSTEM MacZ9.exe Owner Mcshield.exe SYSTEM pcsv.exe Owner Rnz8O.exe Owner S3apphk.exe Owner services.exe SYSTEM smsinkr.exe Owner smss.exe SYSTEM spoolsv.exe SYSTEM svchost.exe SYSTEM svchost.exe SYSTEM svchost.exe NETWORK SERVICE svchost.exe LOCAL SERVICE svchost.exe SYSTEM System SYSTEM System Idle Process SYSTEM taskmgr.exe Owner TB.exe Owner tfswctrl.exe Owner ts.exe Owner tS312.exe Owner updmgr.exe Owner vshwin32.exe SYSTEM VSStat.exe SYSTEM winlogon.exe SYSTEM Finally, these are some programs I see under the Add/Remove list in the control panel which I did not install, some I can't tell if they already came with Windows Xp Home ed. : Context Display IE Host LookSmart Search Lycos Search midADdle NMPSoft RON Display SEP TV Media URL Display Can anyone tell me if these are bad, and if so, can I uninstall them without affecting anything else. Thank you very much for your patience to anyone who reads this and helps me. andromeda1 :)

One thing that will reduce the pop-ups is to get a good pop-up block, like the Google toolbar. Also, in Control Panel, go to Administrative Tools, Service, scroll down to Messenger, right click, open properties, and set to disable. This will stop a lot of stuff. Not familiar with the programs you list.

An Internet search at Yahoo got this: http://castlecops.com/postt37984.html find IEHost.exe at the bottom text.

From personal experience, TV Media is very difficult to remove. None of the spyware tools will remove it. You will have to remove it manually from the registry and any software it installs locally and you will have to do this in Safe Mode, diconnected from the Internet---good luck, you have some work ahead of you if you want to remove all that garbage installed correctly. Yes, they are all bad!!!

Thank you so much for the information. I do have the toolbar which takes care of some pop up ads. You say that TV Media is hard to remove. How exactly do I remove it from the registry? Second, which should I begin by removing, the IEHost.exe or the TV Media? In what order should I remove them?: Add/Remove list in the control panel which I did not install, some I can't tell if they already came with Windows Xp Home ed. : Context Display IE Host LookSmart Search Lycos Search midADdle NMPSoft RON Display SEP TV Media URL Display Thanks once again!! andromeda1 :)

Before manually removing, download the following: HiJack This http://www.richardthelionhearted.com/?url=merijn.richardthelionhearted.com Ad-aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ Spybot S&D http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html and CWS Shredder http://www.richardthelionhearted.com/?url=merijn.richardthelionhearted.com Run HiJack this first. To get an understanding of what you see, please refer to this link, it is an excellent tutorial on HiJack This: http://www.richardthelionhearted.com/?url=merijn.richardthelionhearted.com Then run CWS Shredder, Adaware, then SpyBot. Run Adaware and Spybot a second time and then begin the manual removal of what is left over. There is a lot of information, but to start, here is where I began. http://www.pestpatrol.com/pestinfo/t/tv_media_display.asp Another good website to gather information is here: http://www.spywareguide.com/ TvMedia stays resident, so even after you delete it from the Task Manager, it will come back, that is why it is important you remove the scumware in Safe Mode and disconnected from an Internet connection. Good luck!!