Need help with spyware

[Zekenstein]

Alright, my ex-girlfriend's dad had a Trojan horse virus and like 10 serious spyware programs, I unhooked his DSL and got the virus and almost all of the spyware gone, except 1 program. it has warnings that pop up all the time at the bottom right of the screen, and makes the desktop blue with a message about how there is spyware on his computer and wants me to click a link to scan. Ad-aware doesn't seem to get rid of it, does anyone have any suggestions as far as other programs that might help? I'm not sure what the specific spyware bug is called.

 

[evandena]

Google the product, or phony error phrase that it is presenting you with.
This should lead you to the name of the spyware program, and eventually to a solution.

I'm sure you've considered this, but I always recommend a reformat. Spyware is never 100% gone otherwise.

 

[Spartacus]

Ad-Aware is much less effective than it used to be.

Try SuperAntiSpyware. It's a silly name, but it now seems to be one of the better
anti spyware programs.

http://www.superantispyware.com/

Google the product, or phony error phrase that it is presenting you with.
This should lead you to the name of the spyware program, and eventually to a solution.

I'm sure you've considered this, but I always recommend a reformat. Spyware is never 100% gone otherwise.

Googling the offending malware is good advice, but I can't agree with the reformat suggestion. What happens when you reformat, reinstall Windows, reload all of the drivers, apps, data, etc. and then the user gets the same bug the next day? Format again?

No, reformatting is not the solution. Learn how to track down the bug and get rid of it.

 

[Lethal]

Ad-Aware is much less effective than it used to be.

Try SuperAntiSpyware. It's a silly name, but it now seems to be one of the better
anti spyware programs.

http://www.superantispyware.com/

I'll give this another vote as well. I got hit with a "nasty" recently and SAS found a ton of crap that the others didn't.

I gave up on Ad-Aware and uninstalled it recently because of known issues after they stopped supporting the SE version.

When it comes to AV/spyware, I think it's a mistake to rely on one program and feel that you're safe. I regularly run Spybot, AVG, SAS and CCleaner.