ok i did myself in for this one, i swear i was trying to download a silly typing tutor to improve my keyboard skills a bit, got it off some mirror site and then noticed that this wierd pop-up was turning up near the taskbar, it looks vaguely like a windows alert, but its not and it happens everytime i click on a link from a search engine, (doesn't matter what search engine) and it advertises a site, blurb and link. Everytime i right-click on it, it dissappears. Any ideas on how to get rid of it? I've run Adaware, spyware, The latest Nortons anti-virus and i have pop-up blockers. i've tried to see if it is a program running in the background but nothing unusuall is popping up in the task manager. Can anyway shed some light on this???

the next time its there
try running hijackthis
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/

post the log here

"Canned instructions" for HijackThis:

Download the (free) HijackThis utility:

http://www.stevewolfonline.com/Downl...HijackThis.exe

Once downloaded, follow these instructions to install and run the program:

Create a folder outside of any Temp/Temporary folders for HJT and move it there now. A folder such such as C:\HijackThis or C:\Spyware Tools\HijackThis will do.

Run HijackThis, but do not have HJT fix anything yet; only have it scan your system! Once the scan is complete, the "Scan" button will turn into an option to "Save log...". Save the log in the folder you created for HiajckThis, open the log in Windows Notepad, and cut-n-paste the entire contents of the log here.

The log contents will tell us a lot about what "nasties" have crept into your system, and once we analyse the log we can tell you what to do from there.

thanx for the help dudes, finally found the file, was hiding in windows sytem32 folder called happymxd.exe... and vaporised it.
Had also sent a snarky email to starsearch which seemed to be an advert that popped up frequently and they directed me to an unistall webpage, not sure if i would actually trust the site enough to download an unistall program as well... but oh well, at least its gone now

Sometimes those uninstallers actually do work, but personally I'm with you on that one- it just seems too much like the thief who robbed your house asking if he can come back while you're gone so that he can return your items. :rolleyes:

In any event, you might want to post a HijackThis for us to review anyway, just ot make sure there are no "leftovers" lurking around on your system.