Strange Happenings with IE

I use Mozilla Firefox as my primary internet browser but keep IE around because Firefox isn’t compatible with certain websites I use. Recently a message has started regularly popping on my screen saying “Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close” when I haven’t even opened IE. It’s the standard message you get when a program isn’t responding, but the fact I haven’t opened IE concerns me deeply.

When it first started I ran a boot scan with Avast and it found 2 viruses. But the message has continued appearing.

Can anybody help by suggesting what’s wrong, or how I might go about addressing the problem?

Cheers.

Please, check:

  1. Disable System Restore on Windows XP: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];310405
  2. Clean your temporary files.
  3. Schedule a boot time scanning with avast. Start avast! > Right click the skin > Schedule a boot-time scanning. Select for scanning archives. Boot.
  4. Use a-squared, ewido or Spyware Terminator (trojan removers).
  5. Test on-line scanners:
    Virustotal
    Jotti
    Trendmicro
    ewido

Hope this helps…

That’s great, thank you. Just a couple of questions, if that’s ok. Can I clean my temporary files using ccleaner, or should I clean them by deleting them manually? Second, are the Spyware/Trojan removers you mentioned similar to Spybot? I have Spybot on my system already. Can I use that?

Finally, I’m not sure I understand step five. Sorry, but I’m not the hottest when it comes to things like this. :-[

It doesn’t really matter how you delete the temp files, but ccleaner is designed to make it easier to clean up temporary files in more than the windows temp folder.

Spybot is an anti-spyware program that can also be installed by trojans, but the other programs mentioned in 4) are more specialist anti-trojan/malware programs.

Step 5, the first two are links to on-line multi-engine virus scanners, 27 in the case of VirusTotal, these are normally used to confirm a file is either a good detection or a possible false positive detection. The last two can be used to run scans on your computer from on-line, this is used as a second opinion/check of your system if you are suspicious that you have a virus, etc. that hasn’t been detected.

There are many on-line scanners that you can do this with. On-line Virus Scanners and other useful Links Security-Ops.eu.tt

Just thought I’d let you know that your advice was a great help. Ewido is a fantastic piece of kit and it found one or two things on my system that other software hadn’t picked up.

My computer seems fine right now, and all is well. Hopefully that message will never appear again.

Thanks.

Yes ewido is a good companion to avast. It depends on what caused the IE errors it could have been malware but, possibly something else fingers crossed.

A belated welcome to the forums.

Yes ewido is a good companion to avast.

Pity AVG bought it. :-\ :cry:

Nah, Grisoft bought it ;D :smiley: (I know, I know) ;D.