You may have a virus/spyware hijack

download the Stinger from here and run it to make sure that A-V-disabling
viruses are not present on your PC
http://download.nai.com/products/mca...rt/stinger.exe

- update your virus scanner and run a full system scan of all files.

check your HOSTS file - it may have been amended


Reboot to Safe Mode and run CWShredder - to remove variants of the
CoolWebSearch hijacker.
http://www.merijn.org/cwschronicles.html

Use CWShredder, the removal tool:
http://www.merijn.org/files/cwshredder.zip
http://www.merijn.org/files/CWShredder.exe
http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads...CWShredder.exe
http://www.zerosrealm.com/downloads/CWShredder.zip

Try BHODemon - from http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/bhod/

Download AdAware from www.lavasoftusa.com, install, update, and run it to
remove spyware, adware,
and other such nasties from your system.

(thanks to Graham Womack for the following)
Do all this in Safe Mode.......
Make a Restore Point - just in case it gets worse.
Using Regedit, search for 'Safeguard'. Make a note of the dll name (if
there's an entry at all).
Run BHODemon. Look for the same dll name The 'Details' key should give you
more information about when the entries were loaded. Disable the registry
entry.
Search your hard drive for the dll file (should be in Windows\System).
Rename it and a similar named lib file - change the extensions.
Reboot, cross your fingers and try 'My Computer'

HTH

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2004, Win9x)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
or
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/f.../Mar27pmvp.asp
"Mark" wrote in message
...
After recently using msconfig to go into selective startup
and unchecking a number of programs (to stop spy and ad
ware) in the startup tab now I can not get to any website
with IE. Since then we have rechecked (√) every program in
the startup tab, but no change. The computer is running
Windows ME and is on a network with 2 other computers. I
can ping the other computers and see their shared files. I
can ping this computer and see its shared files. I can
ping IP addresses on the internet. I can tracert an IP
address. I thought it was a DNS problem, but I can tracert
google.com. Oddly enough I can not ping or tracert
ping.symantec.com from this computer, but it works on the
other working computers. (Access to internet is fine on
the other computers) Typing an IP address into IE's
address window (like http://216.92.. etc..)does not work.
I have Norton and when the machine is starting up I get
the message: "Norton Antivirus is unable to start eMail
protection. Please ensure that TCP/IP is installed. This
suggests something is wrong with my TCP/IP, but if I
change the TCP/IP properties I lose the ability to see the
other computers. Also "Unable to synchronise the
environment variables in the windows registry with the
environment variables in the legacy files AUTOEXEC.BAT
and/or CONFIG.SYS" comes up after typing msconfig. What
should I do or test? I've noted uninstall and reinstalling
TCP/IP on Win ME should be left to Microsoft dealer.