Small Rectangle on Desktop ARG!!!

[evilcowstare]

HI I have had a small rectangle appear on my desktop everytime I start up and I dont know what it is or how to get rid of it, its about the height of the start menu and about 5mm wide, its split into 2 the top part is solid like a title bar and the bottom is like a very small window and has a tiny line in it, when I place the curser over the window a hand appears asif it can be opened but nothing happens, i cant close it and can only move it around the screen, it highlights when i click it and darkens when i open something else suggesting it is some form of application, i cant enlarge it and task manager shows up nothing running.

Its driving me nuts.

Can anyone help????

 

[carrr]

1) Does a context menu of any sort appear when you right-click on it?

2) Have you tried downloading SpyBot and running (just to see if it picks up anything strange)?

http://www.safer-networking.org/

3) The hand that appears...is it a pointer, or a "grabbing" hand? i.e. can you stretch out the edges of the box?

 

[evilcowstare]

I just ran Spybot and it seems to have gone for now, hmm wonder what it was doing, Thats very much for the help!!

For future reference it had no context menu pop up on right-clicking and the hand that appeared was the same would appear for a link i.e same as you would see by going to link you gave me.

Thanks Again

 

[carrr]

When you ran SpyBot, did you go through the files that it quarantined? This should give you an idea of what it was...

 

[evilcowstare]

I went through the files but i had quite a few suprisingly about 15 or so in total so couldn't quite work out which ones had created it, i also have installed about an hour ago Norton System Works 2003 so will hopefully stop anymore things taking over my system.

Thanks Again for your help I appreciate it

I seem to spend more time fixing stuff because of the net then actually looking at things.

 

[carrr]

I hear you.
Keep SpyBot around and run it frequently, as Norton isn't going to catch the things that SpyBot is designed to kill off...SpyWare/Adware/Malware don't qualify as viruses, per se, thus necessitating a toll like SpyBot.
Good luck.