Suspect malware, possibly a commercial parasite.

Start by scanning your system with your preferred antivirus application having
first downloaded and installed the most recent set of viral reference
signatures for it.

Then download yourself a copy of the free Ad-Aware 6.0 from Lavasoft
(http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/) and also SpyBot Search &
Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/) and use them to check your system
for other commercial parasites remembering that they are only as good as when
you last updated their reference files. I also use a program called BHODemon
(http://www.definitivesolutions.com/bhodemon.htm that checks for unwanted
Browser Help Objects and SpywareBlaster
(http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareblaster.html) which can help prevent
some parasites getting a grip on your PC.

Just is case the problem is due to the CoolWebSearch parasite you should also
download and run the CWShredder which targets that specific parasite.
Unfortunately neither AdAware or SpyBot seem to be able as yet to fully detect
all the various versions of the CoolWebSearch parasite as it keeps changing.
For more details of the CoolWebSearch parasite see
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html.

CWShredder, merijn's removal tool, can be downloaded from either:
http://www.zerosrealm.com/downloads/CWShredder.zip
or
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/cwshredder.zip

Finally if you still continue to experience problems download a copy of
HijackThis from (http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html). Create a
folder called hijackthis on C: and copy the file you downloaded to that
folder. Close as many applications as you can including all instances of
Internet Explorer and then run hijackthis.exe and post back the log, provided
that it isn't too long, to this thread, otherwise to the HijackThis Forum at
http://forums.spywareinfo.com/ or alternatively
http://forum.aumha.org/viewforum.php?f=30 and hopefully this will enable
someone to identify the cause of your problem.

See also: Dealing with Unwanted Malware, Parasites, Toolbars and
Search Engines http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm and also Browser
Hijacking http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/hijacked/
--?
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



jimm wrote:

Does anyone know why my keyboard stops responding
periodically? It usually happens when I'm using Internet
Explorer. Once it happens the only thing I can do is
reboot, after which the keyboard functions again. It's a
real annoyance. If anyone knows why this problem occurs
and how to fix it, I'd really appreciate it.