Spyware Troubleshooting

Spyware Troubleshooting

One of things about being an IT professional is that all your friends and family come to you for computer help. Despite the fact that I'm a development manager and have never worked help desk, I help out as much as I can: 1) because they're my friends and family, and 2) because I enjoy tinkering and working on with computers.

My father-in-law's computer has become infected with spyware/malware that has hijacked his home page. My initial attempt was to install and run Lavasoft's AdAware. This successfully identified the culprit, but was unsuccessfully in removing it. All of this was done by me via XP's remote assistance, and my father-in-law is on dialup.

Let me tell you, that is some slow going.

Personally, I've never experienced much in the way of viruses, trojans, spyware, malware, etc., because I like to run a tight ship, so to speak. Yeah, speak to me all you want about Windows vs. Linux vs. everything else, and I've tinkered with Linux a bit, but my computing life still centers around Windows, and so does that of my friends and family.

So in an attempt to research what next steps I should take, I came across this site. It's pretty utilitarian in design, but it looks like it has good info. Unfortunately, the steps it outlines seems to be something beyond what I'd attempt via Remote Assistance/dial-up. I'll probably just skim the article for nuggets that I can perform manually, and if that doesn't work, it may have to wait until I'm up at my father-in-law's house again.