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search.exe removal

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7 replies

by mbertel

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I have a user that when ever they turn their computer an extra task bar(named search.exe) will appear on top of the normal task bar. I opened the task manager up and looked for search.exe and killed the process. I thought this would take care of the problem, but it has not. Has anyone had the same scenario. If anyone knows how to properly get rid of this nuesance I would appreciate your help.

Markus

7 replies

by tabcomputers2002

Killing the process won't unistall the bar and that's what you'll want to do. I would first go into control panel => add/remove programs and see if you see it there. If it's there, just run the unistall. I would also download/install/update either Ad-Aware and/or Spybot search and Destroy. They will get rid of all traces of the search bar and will probably find other spyware related items.

Good luck.
Tim

by jireland607

I had a similar problem with internet explorer, everytime I started it, a search bar appeared at the bottom of the screen just above the taskbar. It was being started by some spyware that had been installed.

Have a look in the add/remove programs box for wierd search bars and stuff. Uninstall any that seem suspicous and see if that fixes it. If not then try downloading adaware or spybot, they are both free. They will find any spyware residing on your computer.

There is also another useful utility called startup mechanic, also free. It will allow you to stop programs from executing during startup and supplies a useful explination of each program.

by cglrcng9

The site is www.Searchmeup.com, the culprit is CoolWebSearch & this is 1 of the nastiest browser hijackers around and it mutates daily to another version, each 1 nastier than the one before it.

For more info on how to "attempt to remove it" (real good luck there as I had to reformat a machine just this weekend after using all the known tools and failing to remove it on a customers machine)...Go to: http://www.spywareinfo.com/%7Emerijn/articles.html

There is info there on CWShredder, though that tool worked on the CoolWebSearch version the infected version had, it still came back, even after a lot of reg editing.

Good Luck!

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