This is kind of pissing me off now

[the max]

Every night, I shut my computer off before bed...it's off for a grand total of like 4 hours.

 

Yet, for the last week or so, every morning when I turn it back on, it has reverted itself to weird settings, like the grey taskbar, blockish-looking menu, etc. Basically it turns itself to classic Windows theme, complete with sounds, desktop, etc.

 

I want this to stop, but I have no idea what is causing it.

[Guest subliminal_animal]

Man, you gotta respect the classics. C'mon now.

[the max]

XP just looks smoother though.

[MrRant]

Run a virus scan and make sure it isn't some like that.

[the max]

Ran 2 AVG scans now, and nothing is coming up.

[the max]

OK, I just ran a SpyBot search, and I seem to have a lot of dialers, probably 20-25 or so, plus a lot of stuff that has given me spyware in the past that is still on my system.

 

Is there a way to delete it for good without using Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs?

[Guest T®ITEC]

Why not just use Spybot?

[the max]

Because SpyBot says that they have found all the spyware on my hard-drive but it hasn't.

 

But then again, why when I do a SpyBot search after I restart the computer does it find MORE spyware, and when you can see where it is searching, does it show all of these obvious spyware programs that it isn't deleting?

[Jobber of the Week]

Huh?

 

Run a SpyBot search with updated stuff. Delete that. Do the same with AdAware, restart. Run both and make sure they come up with zero stuff. Use SpyBot's immunize.

 

That's about as much Spyware busting as you can do easily. You might need HijackThis or something, I don't know. I'm not going to give directions on that program since I've never used it, but I have a friend who cleans people's PCs at his college and he says the worst cases sometimes require that tool.

 

Be careful and backup backup backup, I guess.