Systray/Taskbar hell

[xrmndml]

I have an icon from a program that loads when windows starts up, even though I deleted all associated programs, and I deleted every registry entry associated with the the program.

The icon is non-functional, but fucking annoying as it gives me bogus warnings that distract what i'm doing.

please help me make it stop.

Comments

[theweaselking]

It's a fake spyware scanner, meaning it is, itself, spyware.

And you clicked "yes, install that shit" to something online? Definitely malware. Almost certainly also the kind of thing that would be called a *virus*. It's also possible that it really has infected one of those standard startup programs and is a part of them, now, but that's less likely because it's harder to program.

So.

Check your processes list. Google any of them you don't recognise. If you find one that's just gibberish, kill it and see if a new gibberish process reappears - that's classic malware tactics, right there.

Do the CCleaner thing, but don't expect it to fix your problem.
Then go to HiJackThis and find where the damn thing's actually loading from, and what it's called. If you can, google that and get removal instructions.

If you can't find it there, from msconfig, stop all non-MS services, remove all startup items, boot into safe mode with networking, update your virus scanner, and run a full scan. Since it's not detecting it *now* it probably also won't detect it *later*, but it's worth a try.

[xrmndml]

i've done all of that. in safe mode, with nothing running but microsoft services and mcafee, the icon is still there. i'll try it without mcafee when I get home.

I did, as soon as I realized my mistake, realize it was malware and took action. I deleted everything on my computer that I thought could be related to it. the program isn't running, the icon doesn't open the same bogus virus scanner it did before, it just tries to open a webpage to get the program installed again.

I am 99.99% certain that I killed the program, at least the part that would have really caused me problems.

the program was virusprotect 3.9 and there are removal instructions online, but they pretty much just cover what I already did. I have some .dll's to hunt for, but I already deleted every single file the system would allow me to that was created on 12/17/07.

[theweaselking]

CCleaner and a .dll bug hunt, then, are your next steps.

Keep me updated? I'm curious.

[xrmndml]

Me too. I've killed my share of viruses. I'm not exactly a computer newb. I'm starting to think that it infected McAfee.

The battle will start again tonight and I'll let you know.

[theweaselking]

McAfee is evil and incompetent. Get AVG or Avast instead. They're better, and free.

[theweaselking]

I haven't downloaded the programs you suggested yet, but I've conclusively determined that when in safe mode, with only the 3 services it says my computer can't run without.. the icon is still fucking there.

[xrmndml]

That was me, in deleting tons of files, I've deleted tons of cookies too.

[xrmndml]

Okay. It was a single .dll file causing the taskbar icon. I didn't catch it because it claims it was created months ago (I searched files created on the day it started). I eventually looked through all the files modified that day. axed the .dll, and I have no problems.

that one tiny little .dll was fucking my system resources too.