Party Poker affiliate browser popup -- where is this coming from??

[teddyFBI]

Can't quite figure this one out:

I just reinstalled Windows XP, b/c I had some problems. Reinstall went just fine. But I have a problem with something called WinFixer that keeps opening new browser windows that redirect to the WInfixer home page. I did a little research, and found some possible solutions to the Winfixer thing.

Here's the more perplexing thing though: I ALSO get new browser popups of a Party Poker affiliate link (I can tell b/c it has a WMxxxx number in the address). I can't for the life of me figure out how this is happening, b/c I haven't even reinstalled any of the poker clients yet.

Quite literally all I've done is reinstall XP, then MS Office, and Photoshop. That's it. Yes, I browse tons of poker websites, but i've never seen this type of Party affiliate browser window -- anyone seen something similar or know what may be going on here?

[Sniper]

You have a virus on your machine!

You do have a firewall and antivirus software, right?

[krimson]

A fresh installation of Windows XP is a virus magnet, if you let it connect to the internet. When reformatting you should make sure you have your firewall, anti-virus and sp2 update on the harddrive, or on a cd or something and install those before connecting your computer to the 'net.

Chances are, you picked up a virus or two, it has monitored what sites you were browsing, saw the word "poker" come up a lot and then starts spamming you with a poker junk.

You might consider reporting this affiliate to Party as well?

[teddyFBI]

[ QUOTE ]
A fresh installation of Windows XP is a virus magnet, if you let it connect to the internet. When reformatting you should make sure you have your firewall, anti-virus and sp2 update on the harddrive, or on a cd or something and install those before connecting your computer to the 'net.

Chances are, you picked up a virus or two, it has monitored what sites you were browsing, saw the word "poker" come up a lot and then starts spamming you with a poker junk.

You might consider reporting this affiliate to Party as well?

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, this makes sense to me (although i don't know if it's correct)...nonetheless it seems to make sense...

thanks.

i'll re-reinstall and this time not connect to the net before installing my antivirus stuff (which i remember I did the first time). But that being said, I've run all sorts of scans with my antivirus program(s) and the all come up clean!!? I figure at least they'd be able to tell me if my machine were infected.

[colapops]

WinFixer isn't strictly a virus, it's just a variant of Spyware. However as said before, if you connect to the net with an unprotected XP you'll have a few worms/trojans on your system in minutes (speaking from experience with knowledge of worms/trojans). I counted 6 infections within 4 minutes, something I won't be repeating [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Winfixer is notoriously difficult to remove, so you'll need a reformat and reinstall to be safe. Get the firewall on and you can connect to the net, I don't use any AV although it is recommended.

[Paradigm]

Hi folks --

I am preparing to re-install WinXP on a new HD and if I hadn't seen this thread, I would have connected right to the internet to update windows. I downloaded AV and FireWall software, but I only have a WinXP Service Pack 1 CD-ROM for install purposes, so I need to download SP2. For the life of me, I can't find the direct file anywhere, only the rediculous Windows Update stuff. Krimson, you said to have the SP2 stuff ready to go. Any idea where to get it? If I can't find it I'll have to just hope that my firewall and AV will get me through to the point where I can download SP2.

You can download the offline installation of SP2 here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[Paradigm]

thanks very much, but will there be any big changes since i'm not an IT Developer or Technician or anything like that? Or is that saying the download is intended to help those people install SP2?

[krimson]

You don't need to be IT for the link above to useful. It's just a downloadable version of SP2. It's provided to make it easier for companies with 100's of computers to update, and also allows for secure systems (ie: no internet connection on the network) to run the updates.

[skoal2k4]

Try this