computer question

i have an internet/computer question for you all. how do you get rid of something that is taking over your whole computer? in deleting my hotmail one of the nasty messages was highlighted and it seems to have played havoc with everything since. before i never had problems but now i have windows opening repeatedly on their own and now my homepage (the forum) has been overwritten and i am unable to change it back (i can't highlight or access the change homepage feature). i have deleted everything in my cookies file, have erased my recent internet history and i don't know what else to try. it is so so frustrating. anyone have any ideas???

This sounds as if it as Trojan Horse program. These often sneak into your machine by masquerading as legit attachments to your e-mail. If it is a Trojan, you have to hope that a virus checking program will be able to delete it.

One way to try is to run the free checker at:

[housecall.antivirus.com]

Another is to ask a friend with a recently purchased program to bring his or her CDto you to help you try to clean your PC. Initially try to run the program from the CD. This may be more successful than installing it on your machine. If run from the CD it can't be infected or modified by whatever program is causing your pain.

Good luck!

Also, there was a similar issue raised in one of the recent issues of a PC magazine. It occurs to me that if you tell us the home page that you are being switched to, we may be able to help you identify what program is causing the havoc.

Likewise you could do a google search with the name of the home page and the search terms "Trojan", "switch" and "homepage". That may nail it for you!

Symantec (makers of Norton AntiVirus) has a virus encyclopedia on their website at: [securityresponse.symantec.com] There is a search box where you can enter anything you know about your trojan horse.