Hello all -

I searched the site a bit and found it very useful thus far but I came across something I could not find an answer for... Last night, I was trying to correct issues that are causing our computer to run sluggishly. After a while, a small icon appeared in the system tray - a yellow shield. When you cursed over it, a text box would hover and show "13% Updated", up to "30% Updated" by the time I shut down. I could not close the program though the icon would go away and then reappear later. I figured I had somethin malicious since I couldn't close it and there seemed to be no controlling it, unlike other icons in the system tray. At first, I thought it was a Norton app but I don'r have Norton on the system.

I saw several posts about Spyfalcon and the like but cannot determine what I'm dealing with. I have the instructions on opening in Safe Mode and cleaning that way but will it work even though I don't know the name of my malady? I'm unsure of what to look for and remove. FYI, I'm using McAfee (firewall & antivirus) & SpywareBlaster (which reported nothing). I'm having a difficult time opening websites and an even more troublesome time getting e-mail programs to open and run, so any links to fixes will be time consuming to be sure.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer - this is a great asset to have in times like this!

Frank

That icon was probably the Windows automatic update.

That's what I originally thought but it doesn't look the same, the computer has never run slowly before and I've been able to control the icons in the system tray - this one behaves differently and looks like a poor copy of other, similar icons. The system is seriously compromised in Web activities though others, like MediaPlayer, run fine. Curious....


Frank

In that case you should do a thorough scan for viruses, spyware etc. What antivirus and antispyware programs are you using? You should update them and then reboot your computer into safe mode to run the scans.

Edit: Sorry, I didn't read your original post fully. I think you should scan with some more applications. Ones I would recommend are:

Ad-Aware
Spybot
Superantispyware
AVG Antispyware

These are all free.