I'm an advanced computer user who can almost always spot bad programs, files, notices, etc. on my computer. However, I've noticed that lately my browser (Internet Explorer 6.0 on a Windows XP Pro machine) is redirecting all failed URL entries to the search-about.net website. It won't even let me enter my local intranet address (localhost) w/out typing in the http:// part. I've searched high and low and can't find what's causing this. I've run Ad-Aware 6 a few times, and while it always finds some minor spyware stuff, it never gets rid of this problem. My next step is to remove IE and reinstall it, but before I do that...I'm curious if there's a place in the registry that I can look for that might remove this redirection, as I know nothing about the layout of the registry. Thanks!
mcafee (http://us.mcafee.com/default.asp) has a good free online service for locating virus/trojan apps on your PC ... you might want to give it a run before messing around in the registry (which probably wouldn't help you anyhow...).
You also might want to see what you get back on your DNS lookups. Try opening a command prompt window and pinging a few known sites. Then ping one that does not exist. See if you get a failure, or if your DNS server is returning the same IP for all non-existant sites.
Thanks for your replys.
This is the url that comes up when I enter a bad URL:
res://mshp.dll/http_404.htm
I deleted the mshp.dll file in my Windows folder, but it still does this.
I tried the McAfee thing and it found no viruses.
http://www.merijn.org/cwschronicles.html
Thanks. According to that program, I had the CWS Affiliate: Winshow installed. Running the program appears to have resolved the problem. Thanks!!!
i had something simular
i had a virus
symantec web site can help, check to see if you have any new folders in your c drive called shareddocs and check ur startup folder for unusal stuff that u know shouldnt be there
http://www.merijn.org/cwschronicles.html
For those who have tried to download the program, you've found that this website no longer exists. Well I'm happy to announce that I found I still had the program on my computer. So I've uploaded it to my webserver. Feel free to download it:
For those who have tried to download the program, you've found that this website no longer exists. Well I'm happy to announce that I found I still had the program on my computer. So I've uploaded it to my webserver. Feel free to download it:
http://www.twcclassics.com/aboutnet/CWShredder.exe
To save on bandwidth/server space on my paid server, I've moved this file to my Geocities site.
http://www.geocities.com/twcmusicguy/searchabout.zip (I had to zip it, otherwise Geocities wouldn't let me upload it)
This thread is pretty old, but I've moved it anyway.
And do you realise that you can download the file from its official site?