Stopping popups in Win 2000 1

[Righty]

Where can I go to find the files that continously create popups in a computer running wIN 2000. I have deleted cookies, temp files. I have searched for things like Gator but cannot find how to stop them. Any ideas?

 

[jrbarnett]

Hi,

Which sort of popups?
If they are web browser popups that ask you to buy items, then I suggest running a good spyware checker over your machine (Ad-Aware or Spybot).

If they are network messages and your machine is a standalone, I suggest installing a personal firewall on it such as Kerio (

http://www.kerio.com)

or ZoneAlarm (

http://www.zonelabs.com),

and disabling the Messenger service in the Services control panel will also do this.
However, if you are in a networked environment (ie your PC is part of a LAN), don't disable the messenger service - as it is used for network message broadcasts as well, I would just contact the people in charge of managing the external internet connection and ask them to block incoming and outgoing requests from/to ports 135-139 inclusive. This will also stop any file and printer sharing going outside the building and should be done anyway as a matter of course.

John

 

[noobtechie]

If it's web based applications try

http://www.popupcop.com/download.html

it's a free 30 day trial, it works pretty well.

 

[MToombs]

I have found the new Google tool bar has a great popup stopper - and it's free.

 

[SYAR2003]

I think it's great.

http://toolbar.google.com/

SYAR

 

[PHH1955]

A lot of popup messages are coming through the Messenger service that is started by default on Win2K. They look like a dialog box with a message in them. The dialog title bar says "Messenger". You can stop those by disabling the Messenger service in Control Panel-Administrative Tools-Services. I don't think you really need that service on a home computer unless you are trying to send messages to other users in the house on other computers on a home network.

 

[SYAR2003]

PHH1955 is right you have no use for the messenger service .

 

[Righty]

I tried Noobtechie's suggestion and so far it works great. I went into Admin tools/Services and Messenger was already deleted

 

[Biohazard]

Righty, you don't specify when popup's appear, so in case they come out even if you donpt have open IE or the browser of your choice, chek the Run key in the Registry, a program may be executing from there.

Key Path:

Start/Run/Regedit
HKLM/SW/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run

From there you´ll see the list of programs that run in your computer after boot time (a brief descritpion is also available). If you see any program you don´t recognize delete that line...... but be very carfull

PS. This is just if popup's appear even if browser is not open, or at least this was the senario I had and worked fine.

Good Luck....

Technically... ¡Everything is possible!


Biohazard

 

[mondy]

Run spybot once a week or so. I use Mozilla with the built-in popup-blocker and I have had no problems since then. :O)

 

[SYAR2003]

Note! Is you have spyboot , set it to immunize and forget scans . Just update it regularly .

 

[mondy]

I installede the Google toolbar over the weekend and it works great with IE. Now that Microsoft has decided to get on board the anti-popup bandwagon, maybe we won't have to worry about it as much.
(copy and past in broswer for story)

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5105139.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed

 

[SYAR2003]

The new IE is announced to be released in 2004 together with Windowx-XP Sp2 . So we will have to wait a bit for it.