What do you do if.....

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

a pop-up takes over the entire pc screen and there's no place to click on it to either minimize, or eliminate it? 5 minutes ago, a warning pops up about the 'Sasser virus' being detected..and then suddenly a full screen pop-up ad for some virus protection software. I had to manually shut down the system to get rid of it. Can you use some 'ctrl' + __ command to get rid of these annoying ones?

[Dan Gould]

Try control alt delete and see if there's a program running to highlight and click "end task"

But I got the same thing going on mine, so I wonder if there's something at organissimo that is infecting users?

Actually, the thing that popped for me had a blue screen and a box in the middle. Don't click OK, but click the "x" at the top of the box and it will close.

[rockefeller center]

Unfortunately I haven't encountered this problem yet. I'd search the web for that warning (put in quotation marks of course).

Could be some Adware or something; scroll down to bottom and check out the Lavasoft program: http://www.athenet.net/

Spyware and Adware (updated 4/21/04)

You may have heard or seen references to types of software called spyware or adware. These software applications are installed with many freeware or shareware programs available on the Internet. You may also find these applications installed when going to certain web sites. Spyware and adware can cause pop-up windows, slow down your computer, and cause error messages. Athenet recommends running a spyware/adware removal tool as part of your regular computer maintenance. One popular free program to help remove spyware or adware is Ad-Aware from Lavasoft which you can download for free here.

[couw]

weizen, try circling open processes with alt+tab when this should happen again. If you have more than one process running, they will show in the task bar. Right click the taskbar button for your browser and select close. That way you don't have to shut down the whole shebang. If you only have one application running, alt+F4 should work to shut that down. Ad-Aware or SpyBot are nearly necessary to have installed these days...

[catesta]

Ad-Aware or SpyBot are nearly necessary to have installed these days...

SpyBot has worked wonders for me.

Weizen, if you don't already have at least one of them installed, do it today.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Okay, thanks. I have that Symantec corporate edition virus program that fires up every day when I turn the system on......and also the Ad-Aware 6.0 that I hadn't run for at least 45 days. That thing locked onto about 90 assorted 'items' that I didn't bother to quarantine and just zapped. Suppose I should be running that program a bit more often, eh? ....every week? .....every couple of days? What do you folks do?

[scottb]

I recently found 31 copies of Sasser on my home computer. I do very little surfing there beside checking email and this board. My virus protection runs weekly on Friday so all these worms appeared over several days. I knew something was up because my FIFA soccer game was really slow and the screen saver "flying through space" was more like "frozen in space."

[couw]

virus updates: every day

Ad-Aware: every week (at least)

SpyBot: every week (at least)

MSWindows update: once every while (usually every two weeks)

Last time I did an MSW update, Bill ruined my graphic stuff completely. Weird shit. Sasser was abounding and I did the necessary update (tip for Scott: get the update!) and after that PShop didn't run anymore. Also had BIG problems with MSPowerpoint and later on even with MSWord. No viruses nowhere, so I blame Bill.