Micorsoft? What is this???

I, too, am having the microsoft thing at the bottom of the page, but what comes up first are several porn sites that i have never subscribed to or entered. at the top of the page it says Microsoft explorer...very annoying... and i cannot figure out where it comes from or how to get rid of them

petunia,

Download and run this program and you should be rid of this pest.

http://security.kolla.de/

SpyBot gets my vote too. In broken record mode here, security is the user's responsibility. Badguys are badguys, but there's no point makin' it easy for 'em. Get, use, AND KEEP UPDATED an anti-virus, an adware-killer, and, for those so inclined, a firewall. Pay attention to AND GET all Operating Sustem updates and patches. The script kiddies and pro hackers alike count on folks being too lazy or unconcerned to properly secure their systems. The past few days have brought me a good bit of money dealing with the problems folks not taking that advice have gotten themselves into. I've even come across current infestations of L_Love_U and Klez ... and there is absolutely no excuse for those two to still be out there. And while its sorta nice to hear, I really don't need the happy e-mails and phonecalls that go more or less; "Thanks, Timber! My computer is running just fine now and working faster than ever"

'Course, I still take the money.

I too now work as a tech for a lil extra cash and gotta say worms and spyware are our (the techs) best friends lol spybot works good adware is another choice and remember anti virus software only goes so far you should really run multiple software as each program will look for different patterns in code aka finding new viruses. When it comes to firewalls never use zonealarm as it can be easily tunneled. Sygate Pro works well but all and all if you want to keep ppl out you need a hardware firewall because software will not do the trick. Just remember hackers/crackers find vulnerabilities the same way you and I can, the key is to fix them asap

Yeah, a hardware firewall is the way to go. ZA is better than nothin', though ... but any software firewall has easily exploited flaws ... there are newsgroups and IRC channels devoted to 'em. If properly configured, even ZA can do a pretty good job of keepin' out amatures and dilletants, but whatever software security most folks use, they neither bother to learn enough about to configure it properly, nor take the time and effort to keep it updated. What the hell ... its beer money. And this week, I can go for the imported stuff :wink:

yup exactly lol, sygate is the best software firewall I have found though and yes every firewall can be exploited the key is to protect yourself as best as possible. I once tunneled ZA in 90 seconds lol (testing on a network with permission)

Re: Micorsoft popup
To those of you who are getting that flippin' annoying popup and cannot locate it's source, I have a suggestion that just might help. I was searching my files for anything out of the ordinary which I have not downloaded or installed, and guess what I found........hmmmmm.....

I found a file from Microsoft themselves, which was Dw15.exe. There are apparently a few versions of this, so I suggest you do as I did, a search with the string "Dw15.exe Microsoft application". You may have to look for a short time to find the page I located, since we are not to post links here, and I understand that, but rest assured, I deleted a couple of files that it suggested and KaBoom, no more annoying popup, AND my computer works fine. The application, as I understand it, comes with IE version 6, but not with 5. Just thought I would try to help with this issue since I have been plagued by it for over a month and finally have a resolution. BTW, Microsoft uses this Dw application to track your activities on the web. Hope this helps the vast majority of you with this issue. This is my first time posting, so forgive the length of this.

Sincerely,
Madison

Welcome, MadisonD!

No need to apologize for length, or there would be a LOT of apologizing around here.

Btw you CAN post links, just not to your own website. The idea is to keep out spammers, but actual informative links are fine.

Dw15.exe is part of Microsoft's "Error Reporting". It is embedded in IE6, and is included among the more recent updates to IE5.5. Kicking it out seems to do no harm. You could do a search for dw15.exe ... it'll probably show up in IE and in MS Works applications. Typically, its 150-160 KB in size. Delete it if you wish, then find and delete the following:

C: \ProgramFiles\InternetExplorer\1033\Dwintl.dll (version 10.0.2118.2. or higher)

C: \ProgramFiles\InternetExplorer\Dw.exe
( version 10.0.2118.2. or higher)

C: \ProgramFile\InternetExplorer\DW15.EXE

C: \ProgramFiles\InternetExplorer\Iexplore.exe (version 5.51.3 or higher)
(Delete then restore from the Recycle Bin after removing the others)

Remember to restore IE from the Recycle Bin once you've cleaned everything else out. Reboot, and it should be gone.


Microsoft offers a registry edit to disable error reporting, details HERE , down at the bottom of the page.


Before deleting or modifying anything,its a good idea to do a backup and to set a system restore point. Anytime you play with your registry, ALWAYS back it up before making any changes. For info on how to back up and restore your registry, see THIS (while this page is specific to XP, it has links to instructions for other Windows OSs as well.)

Finally the answer we've all been waiting for re: Micorsoft
Hi all!

The last solution I thought I had was not a complete solution, and only worked temporarily. Those of you that are getting this annoying pop-up still, should check your computer for ClearSearch. If you find this, there are two things you need to do: 1. Check Symantic's website for the path to the registry key that Clearsearch has highjacked, and 2. Delete the setup files.

I found win32_BI Application in my Add/Remove programs and deleted this, as it is NOT a Microsoft program, but an ad generator. Please have a look all over the web about these and you will understand. I couldn't believe it myself, but have been "pop-up" free from "Micorsoft" for three days. Finally...........

Sincerely,
Madison

BTW, the way I figured these out is I set all of my cookie values and such to prompt. It's a hard way to do it, but worth every annoying dialog prompt....lol.

Madison

PS: Thank you for the welcome SoZoBe

Madison,

If you want to do that I suggest a "quieter" alternative.

Set it to block all and when you want to use cookies for a specific site make it an "always allow".

In the lower right of the status bar you will see a red icon when cookies are blocked. If you double click on it you can set IE to always accept that site's cookies.

This makes it a bit easier on you. The prompts can be daunting!

Congratulations to all!
Hey everyone,

Just a quick message to say thanks to everyone here for their advice. I have been plagued by this damn "micorsoft" popup for a good few months and I am so glad to be rid of the damn thing!

Keep up the good work!

ilovehtml

A pleasure! Welcome to A2K.

micorsoft
hey ppl... i had the same problem with the micorsoft pop-up, all i did was do a search through my hard drive (including hidden files and folders) and searched for "micorsoft"... then i deleted all the results, which were mainly cookies and temporary internet files.... there was one main folder which contained all the pop-ups etc and it was called "xads.offeroptimizer". so i deleted this as well... i haven't had any problems ever since!! but i really would like to know where it came from...

hope that's helped some of you! i haven't looked in my registry yet but i don't think i need to - there aren't any pop-ups anymore!!!!!!!!

Thanks, Whoo Hoo. Welcome to a2k.

I was the one who originally started this thread and had x'ed Micorsoft off my computer but it returned. So I did as you suggested this morning. Even a brief respite from their onslaught would be good.

Geez, the Micorsofters, whoever they are, are devious. They had made folders in my computer for every day of the week. <sigh>

Good to hear most are rid of this MicORsoft problem, however I ain't so lucky - I must have every spyware removal software in the world on my computer, and now when I hit certain sites - Yahoo, Google, AOL Mail, and others - I usually get not one, but TWO of these despicable MicORsoft windows at a time. Anyone else ever experience this? At any rate, I'm going to work to remove at least one of these, because this is just god awful!!!!

OK... I searched my computer for all the things mentioned - Clearsearch, xads, micorsoft - and none were found. Found the dw15 thingie but will not touch that since it is to no avail anyway.

I will get rid of this nasty worm, but I need your help. What else is left to do?

P.S. After posting this message, TWO MORE popups just popped up... This is OUTRAGEOUS!

Have you actually tried SpyBot yet? its pretty good at ferreting out and killing that sort of stuff. If you haven't done so yet, download it, run it (could take a while to run a full scan), follow its advice about what to delete, reboot, open SpyBot again, UPDATE it first, then run it again, and see what happens.

1) Download and Run Ad-Aware (click here)
2) Download and Run Spybot (click here) - spybot may request to run on next start up of windows as 'micorsoft' is often running in memory.
3) Restart computer - allow spybot to rescan.
4) Click fix button to remove all traces of 'micorsoft'.

NB. Ad-Aware will pick up some items that spybot misses and vice-versa. They are both free, so why not use them both!
I disabled the internet connection (ADSL) while scanning and during restart just to be sure.

Nothing else I did worked. These exact steps did. So far I haven't seen a trace of the annoying pop ups. I'll be back if they reappear. Hope this helps everyone.

HJB