For 3 1/2 Years I've used Windows ME with no problem, everything went smoothly, but lately, IE has had so many pop ups, so about 3 months ago I started using Mozilla FireFox. Sometimes I still go on IE to do things that the Netscape Style Mozilla can't, and yesterday, when I went on my homepage, all of a sudden 2 pop ups popped up, one a full screen one that wouldn't go away until I pressed return, so I just closed the entire computer. And ever since, I press CTRL+ALT+DLT to see what programs I'm running, and there is a bunch of crap that wasn't there yesterday. And when I rebooted yesterday, it mysteriouslly installed some programs on my desktop, start menu, and things that run right when I boot up the computer.

Why I think I have a virus is because some weird things pop up and dissapear when I boot up the computer, and the computer has been ultra, ultra slow. But other than being super slow, weird programs in CTRL+ALT+DEL that shouldn't be there and they don't close, freezing at weird times, and millions of pop ups by just OPENING Internet Explorer, nothing else is wrong. Any help by finding what virus or what I can do with this?

 

Sounds like spyware. Go to www.lavasoft.nl and download a copy of Ad-Aware.

 

now i've done it, but some programs are still running on the background and i don't know what they are.

 

I would try spybot. It worked for a IE problem on my sis's laptop. Spybot also allows you to select the programs you boot during the start up process, which might help.

Link:
http://www.safer-networking.org/

If you need a free anti-virus program you can download a a free one here:
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

You have to register to download. It's nothing big and should not take longer than 2 minutes.

I guess while you're at it you could update your winME.

 

same shit happend to me today!

I went to control panel and deleted whatever looked odd turned out i had a program that "helps your browser"
I spent 5 hours fixing that thing today, deleting everything it left ... I ended up using system restore to go back 4 days before i got this add programs... it even messed up google for me it would turn everything into adds in my results...

i'm not sure ME has system restore, if it does try that... thats what fixed it for me

i also have spy bot and ad aware and dont run Internet explorer

 

That's what you get for surfing porn sites, George ....

 

Check for a "pup.exe" file on you computer. I had this a couple weeks ago and don't
know how it was loaded to my HD. Norton and Mcafee don't consider it a virus.
I had this and 2 other exe files on my computer. I could delete the pup.exe but the
other two couldn't be deleted, I couldn't delete a program that was running in WINDOWS.
Plus the exe would rename itself each time I logged on. I ended up having to
login at DOS to delete them. Check your HD for any recent exe's that you haven't
added lately.

 

Determine which file is the culprit spyware file. Typically it's one that when deleted or removed from the MSCONFIG, it reappears with a different name. Once you have determined which file it is along with any other files that it may have created in the process (use the date created method to determine), you should go into DOS to manually delete the files. Deleting some of these spyware files from Windows automatically runs an EXE that won't happen in DOS (since you're using ME). I've done this before with a client's computer... that spyware can be very persistent and virulent...

 

You can also scan for viruses at http://housecall.antivirus.com