Ok Guys, Gals and Wondering Why.


I have just downloaded a video file, went to play it in ms windows media player and was told i could only listen to the file and not view it due to a codecs plug-in issue. If i wanted to watch the video then click 'here' to download the plug-in.

I was a little bermused as I've been watching movies on my laptop for months now with no problems but i thought hey go on.

Anyways when i clicked on the link, i was asked if i wanted to download 'av codecs'. I did so, went to open the file and the .exe program was just called 'setup.exe'. This did arrise my suspicions but i stupidly installed it.

Wo and behold my virus software said trojan horse, then when I tried to go on the internet i would no longer go to my google homepage. It kept on going to a page saying i have 100's of errors on my computer, wanting me to download an anti virus program and error screens flashing up!
Also i noticed a new toolbar appear on my internet explorer called 'protection bar'.

I tried everything to delete this bloody thing but couldn't get rid of the toolbar or change my homepage. (my computer still said my homepage was google even though i always went to this other site.)
I tried anti hijack software, anti-virus software, restoration programs the works.

In the end it turned out to get relatively simple. The exe file had actually installed programs in the background that were running, these were taking me to other sites (giving me errrors everywhere) and giving me the annoying toolbar. But my windows program uninstaller couldn't see them.

I had to load up in safe mode and go through any updated files to delete them. Also I downloaded 'your uninstaller 2006' this got rid of a lot too.! still got the option to show the toolbar in my menu but the toolbar no longer loads up!


Hope you lot are not as stupid as me

crawler /\/T