As I find more and more often, without protection from spyware, you're bound to get attacked. However, I found a solution that I wanted to see if anyone else thought was workable.

I renamed Internet Explorer.

See, I use Firefox, and I found I was still having some odd problems with internet explorer windows opening up for no reason, either putting up ads, or blank "server cannot be found" mumbo jumbo. In my worry, I scanned with Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, and my new System Mechanic. Still....I found nothing but the normal "cookie violations"

However, I conitnued to have problems with the broswer opening again and again.

I can't just delete it due to windows update as well as some websites.

So, I simply renamed it to ie.exe instead of iexplore.exe....and it fixed everything.

I hope this solution could be used by my fellows in the fight against stupid spyware.

Of course, in renaming it, you broke a ton of Windows functionality that expects that file to be where it belongs.

In addition, that's not a fix, it's a workaround. The spyware is still on your system, and you should make every effort to remove it. (Such as using Hijack This! to find the damn program and kill it)

Windows didn't care about my renaming for long, as it created iexplorer.exe right back after I restarted.

At any case, I noticed no functionality loss, and was able to use it as a diagnostic tool. The program that needed iexplorer popped up a window asking where the browser was. I was then able to easily delete the spyware.

It's still not a bad workaround for those heavily infected with spyware.

Spy Sweeper. Caught a bunch of crap that Adaware, Micrsoft antispyware, spybot, hijack this, cwshredder, norton antivirus and trend micro virus & security scan didn't even detect. Including the vundo/winfixer virus bullcrap that's going around and killed it all in one sweep.

It's awesome, only a 14 day trial though. That part sucks...

[QUOTE=Cool Matty]Of course, in renaming it, you broke a ton of Windows functionality that expects that file to be where it belongs.[/QUOTE]No, the Internet Explorer HTMLView control is separate from iexplore.exe. Iexplore.exe doesn't really do much of anything, it pretty much just opens up a window with the toolbars and the control.

So, is there any indication that this would help more people than just me? I fixed my problem, but wouldn't this be almost the simpliest solution for programs that call on the program to smash ads in your face?

No, not really. You lucked out on that particular spyware. It'd be far more helpful to know how and where you got that spyware, because it could be a severe exploit. Unless you did something stupid and actually installed it, but what video files would be worth that? :p

they didn't mean internet explore functionality. more like, say you wanted to open some other programs website from that program, with a link or something. the code would tell it to open the normal iexplore.exe with whatever url. except with iexplore.exe renamed to something else, it can't find the program.

Except that he's using firefox so the association with .htm(l) is with that. Now if a program stupidly called ShellExecute with the path to IE, then yes, it would break.

I really don't even know how to get spyware. It's just something I don't get anymore, same goes for viruses. I learned my lesson 2 years ago when I had to format 10 times in 1 week because of an infected file on my recovery program disk.

/me eats MaxisReed