Unwanted Pop-ups, slower computer...

Hello everyone. I'm kind of computer illiterate, I've used one for quite sometime but I don't know all the shortcuts and stuff. Anyway, I'm running Windows XP on both my home computer and my Dell (work) laptop. I also have 86 pop up blocker on both. I have Norton anit-virus at home, it recently caused my cox communications email to lock up, so I turned off the automatic email scanning. Anyway, both my home and work computers started hosing up at about the same time. I would get unwanted pop ups, over and over again, advertising type stuff. So I ran a scan with Norton, it didn't find any viruses but found several files that it said I should go and delete (Norton couldn't do it). Most of them I was able to delete, but some of them said couldn't be deleted, so my question is how do I get rid of those? I'm not sure I can even remember what the files names are. Is there anything that I can do to search for these unwanted files, and then destroy them once I find them.

Thank you guys very much for any advice and help you can give me in advance! I just want my computer to run faster and more efficient. It takes forever for it to start up, it's ridiculous.

Thanks,

Grant

 

Gdogg6--Scan with a spyware detector
Adaware
http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download/ or
SpybotS&D
http://www.safer-networking.org/
They will find and allow you to quarantine (eventually delete) most spyware.
If that does not help run a scan with HiJackThis
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html
and post the log over on the Security forum on this BBS. Do not try to delete what HJT finds until someone has helped interpret the results.
Have you installed XP SP2?
P.S. As far as remembering the files that NAV caught but you could not delete, perhaps run NAV again and write the names down this time.

 

Thanks for the info. I downloaded both programs and both came up with several results. However, I am afraid to delete them because it talks about doing damage if you delete registry keys or something like that. What if I delete something that shouldn't be deleted, what could happen to my computer and could I reverse that once it's been done?

Thanks,

Grant

 

Gdogg6--Both AdAware and SpybotS&D offer to Quarantine malware. That means it is isolated from the rest of the PC (so it cannot run) but it can be restored (reversed) if you find you need it. Those two programs hardly ever recommend uninstalling something that will cause problems. (If you find that the PC runs fine after about two weeks of use, then you can really delete the malware from Quarantine.)
However, some "freeware" programs like Kazaa require the presence of malware in order to run. So quarantining the malware can disable such programs. Best solution is to quarantine the malware, uninstall the "freeware" program and find malware-free substitute programs. (I think I have heard about a program called Kazaa-lite, for example.)
HiJackThis, however, is not so easy to work with. That is why I suggested you post your HJT log so that others can help you decide what to delete.