Hardware

I have only seen this on my customers' machines running Windows XP, any service pack including 3. To get rid of it, you must edit your registry. It lives in HKEY-Current User/Software/Microsoft/Search Assistant/ACMru and consists of 3 keys numbered in the 5000s. Look in each key and you see references to various files, at least some of which are malicious (bad). Delete all of the numbered keys. Doing so does not appear to affect anything else in Windows. Then search your registry using Edit/Find for AXWIN. Delete any references to AXWIN or Axwin. Unfortunately, Axwin is the name of a legitimate window creating product. The product may be used to create the effect we are trying to get rid of, but the product and its authors don't appear to have anything to do with this malware. It follows several different trojans into infected computers. Scan your computer with SpyBot Search & Destroy 1.6.2 to get rid of other junk left behind.