Undeletable ICONS on desktop?

[Capuchin]

I started getting this problem recently, no doubt its some kind of spyware or something, anyways I run ad-aware and i didnt pick anything up, not even in safe mode.

The problem seems to be from 2 instances of iexplore.exe running in the background, that is creating a set of icons (weblinks). these icons cant be right clicked on, if you try to delete them the pc just acts as if they werent there.

They are not there when i boot up but when i Open winexplorer they appear, when i end task either of the iexplores they just open up again straight away.

Thanks in advance for any help or insight

Capuchin.

[Overclocked Doc]

Download and run Spybot SD in safe mode. The two instances of explorer.exe are normal and probably not the problem.

[Xanex]

on XP ive never seen 2 instances of explorer.exe since that is the desktop et 'al. IEXPLORE.exe maybe but never explorer.exe

another good spyware program to try is BPS

http://www.bulletproofsoft.com/ it manged to get rid of several things SBSAD didnt.

[Overclocked Doc]

"I stand corrected"...my mistake.

[Capuchin]

I am assuming that the instances of iexplore.exe are the problem as the icons dissapear when i end task either of them. And then reappear when they load themselves up again.

[Capuchin]

I downloaded and ran BPS spyware thingy. No luck, Icons are still there :/

[Capuchin]

I don't know if this will help at all, but here is a picture of the problem, the icons that are in the squared cant be right clicked, moved, or anything, only selected or double clicked.

[Xanex]

Have a bash with this

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr.../procexp.shtml

will show what processes have been launched by what program or so im lead to believe

msgplus, ive never had good experiences with this program, useually comes bundled with loads of crap. try removing it see if things improove.

[curtybob]

Xanex is right, it is the Messenger Plus program that is the root of this. I've only seen 2 ways to get rid of this pest, and niether one was a definitive answer. One was to uninstall the Messenger Plus from add/remove in the Control Panel. If that didn't work, you were supposed to download the Messenger Plus installer again, and install it, making sure that an option for the "sponsor" was checked. Then uninstall it again, making sure that no browser windows are open.

The other way was to download a program called new_uninstall.exe (new version of the old LOP uninstaller) get it here : http://lop.com/new_uninstall.exe

[Xanex]

Confirmed, CB is right

http://www.download.com/3302-2150_4-10320442.html

[Capuchin]

Ah, thanks alot, that seemed to do it.

Will not download crap anymore i promise

-Capuchin
*Dances*