I'm spending most of my time on my parents' computer, which is a Dell Dimension 2400 running Windows XP. It's basically riddled with spyware, and my constant regimen of AdAware and Spybot:S&D seems to be barely holding it at bay. In addion to my epic battle with MidAddle, and my seething hatred for the MyDietPatchpopup, now I'm having trouble with an anti-spyware program. I installed Spyware Guard, and I'm sure it's great and all, but I'm getting a pop-up window from it every three minutes telling me that my IE search bar has been changed (I don't even use IE, but it's still on here). So I guess something is still here, that my programs haven't caught, and I don't know anything about Hijack This. Could any of you give me any advice about fixing this? I would appreciate it very much. Oh lordy, please help. I can post a Hijack This log if you want. Thank you! -tricia

Well the first issue is that with the exception of 1 function of Spybot (Teatimer), Spybot and AdAware are "after the fact" spyware cleaners. If the TeaTimer of Spybot and SpywareGuard had been going all along, you might not have had it this bad. That's beside the point now, don't worry, most of that crap can be cleared off one way or another. First of all, go into safe mode and scan for viruses, and whatever it finds, let it kill if it can. Then, run both SpyBot and Adaware and let them take out whatever they say is on there. Spybot may ask to run a scan upon reboot to kill spyware that is loading up at startup---let it do it. HijackThis logs can only be posted with permission, but I'm more than sure the experts in here are going to want it, just so they can see what all you have on the system. Run all your scans and report back.

By the way, if SpywareGuard is telling you something is trying to change your homepage, let it block it.