Cannot delete ad icons from desktop

[kevin]

Hi,
Praying for help here: I was recently invaded by some spyware, I tracked down a DSO exploit and seemingly deleted it with Spybot. However, I still have 5 ad icons that I cannot remove from my desktop (Bingo, Printer cartridges...). If I right click on them there is no menu, nothing, neither can I drag them. The lastest Adware/Spybot, AVI definitions don't find anything. I can't find anything in the registry either. These pesky icons load a couple of seconds after my "normal" icons load, so I was thinking maybe they are activated in the ROM somehow. But that is where my technical knowledge ends.
MMTIA for any advice/tips.

Kevin

 

[GavinO]

When you do a bulk select of icons on your desktop, are those icons selected? Also, if you view the desktop folder with Windows Explorer, do the icons appear? If they do show up in the file manager, are they .LNK files, or something else? Because of the way they don't seem to be working with the rest of the interface, and the delayed load time, I'm thinking that they may be some form of overlay rather than actual shortcuts. Last thing to check, is Active Desktop turned on? They may be page elements of an Active Desktop page.

 

[kevin]

Hello GavinO

>When you do a bulk select of icons on your desktop, are those icons selected?

Yeps.

>...if you view the desktop folder with Windows Explorer, do the icons appear?

Nopes.

>...is Active Desktop turned on?

There isn't a master switch for AD in XP is there? I've no content checked in the Properties ... Web box.

Kevin

 

[Joe]

click "start". click "control panel". click "add or remove programs". scroll down and you will see a program named "search plugin". remove this program. you will be prompted to type some numbers and letters that appear on a blurry screen. do so and click "uninstall". this should remove and all those icons including the tool bar that comes with them. I had the same thing and cleared everything by doing the above.

 

[kevin]

Thanks Joe, but no "search plugin" in my "add or remove programs".

Kevin.

 

[GavinO]

Now that I look, no, there isn't a master switch for active desktop under XP. I hug my 98SE and 2K machines, once again . Not appearing in Explorer but being selectable with a drag box is interesting ... do you have Hide Protected Operating System Files turned on or Show Hidden Files turned off in the View tab of Tools->Folder Options? Also, do the items appear in a DOS file listing (start->run, type 'cmd'[enter], type 'dir desktop'[enter])?

 

[kevin]

No, no and no

 

[GavinO]

Well, this is interesting. I'd poke around in the startup tab of msconfig (start->run, 'msconfig'), and see if anything odd is in there. Remember that you can usually turn stuff back on if you turn it off and break something .

Try booting in safe mode and see if the items appear (during the boot process, press F8 and you should get a menu with a bunch of boot options).

 

[kevin]

Nothing untoward in startup as far as I can see. Have attached 2 screen shots for more expert eyes than mine to peruse. Thanks again.

 

[kevin]

For anyone else who gets stuck with this problem, and it seems very "popular" at the moment, the answer is here: http://www.computing.net/security/wwwboard/forum/14690.html

Thanks for your trouble guys.

Kevin.