Mike
Wed May 19 13:59:16 CDT 2004
HunterBar or HuntBar? AFAIK WinTools isn't part of HuntBar. Others have
e-mailed me saying they have had no problems in removing this pest by
following the steps I had posted. Donna seems to be the exception but then
again she's the only one to date who says they had to pay to download free
software.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP
mcmaltby@hotmail.com
Rick T <plinnane3NO@SPAMyahoo.com> wrote:
> Uninstall Hunterbar... it's Adware/Spyware.
>
> "Donna", another victim reported that the Startup entries rechecked
> themselves. I've got her retrying S&D and AdAware.
>
> If this is a new pest variant, perhaps simply deleting WinTools
> directory might do it.
>
> Mike M wrote:
>> There have been multiple posts where users are experiencing this problem
>> in the last few hours and wtoolsa.exe appears to be new malware of some
>> sort. It certainly doesn't form a part of the Win Me operating system.
>>
>> Boot to Safe Mode, open MSConfig (Start, Run, enter MSConfig in the box
>> and click OK), open the Startup tab and uncheck the entry being used to
>> launch wstoolsa.exe, possibly labelled something like WinTools.
>>
>> Now reboot back into Normal Mode and check your system for commercial
>> parasites.
>>
>> This might be a good time to download yourself a copy
>> of the free Ad-Aware 6.0 from Lavasoft
>> (
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/) and also SpyBot
>> (
http://www.safer-networking.org/) and scan your system for and remove
>> all unwanted parasites, adware and spyware that might be hiding on your
>> PC.
>>
>> I would suggest you download and run merijn's CWShredder which targets
>> the CoolWebSearch parasite. CWShredder can be downloaded from
>> (
http://www.zerosrealm.com/downloads/CWShredder.zip or
>>
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/cwshredder.zip). Details of
>> the many forms of the CoolWebSearch hijacker can be found at
>>
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html and also
>>
http://www.pestpatrol.com/pestinfo/c/cws.asp.