The Villan -

I don't use any of the music sharing programs that have been mentioned, so I can only comment in rather generic terms.

A number of such programs have typically included "tracking features" (translation - Spyware) that allow the distributors of the programs to keep track of what music files you download/exchange. So far as I know, none of them have ever provided a rationale for this, but it appears to be a CYA move - in case they get sued they can pass the buck to you.

In at least a few such cases, it has been widely publicised that Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D may remove the spyware component, and that doing so will "cripple" the main program.

A by-product of removal of the spyware component is that frequently Windows Add/Remove Programs cannot completely remove a program that has had some of its components modified after installation. Additonally, many similar programs do not "register" the program installation, so Windows Add/Remove programs can't remove them.

Some of these programs have provided "uninstall" utilities in the program folder, but in some cases the uninstall programs provided have been found to remove the program but not the spyware.

A "generic solution" sometimes offered is that you must REINSTALL the program and then immediately UNINSTALL it using a standard uninstall method.

The preferred method of uninstalling is usually to use Windows Control Panel Add/Remove programs. Some of these programs do not uninstall completely when you do it this way. If the Windows Add/Remove doesn't list the program, and/or if the uninstall fails, you may have to REINSTALL the program and look for an uninstall utility that came with the program. If this fails, you search the web for someone who's created a removal program - and hope they knew what they were doing.

As you observed, sharing access to computers belonging to anonymous persons is an act of faith, since you have no way of knowing what infects the random machine you might connect to. At this point, it's impossible to know whether the errors you've listed are from a mangled program or from one of the virus/parasite things you picked up in a download. I don't know whether avg keeps a log, but you should check to see if there is a record of what specific items were detected. You may need to know their names to search for complete removal information. The errors may be the result of your removal of a key program component during your attempts to get rid of the crud. If a program changes a needed item, and you just remove the item, a replacement may be needed.

The errors listed are of the kind you get when a file has been deleted but there is still an instruction telling the machine to open the file. An instruction of this kind can come from the registry, or from a file in Start or in Startup folders, or from another file (usually a .dll, sometimes an .exe) anywhere on your machine.

It is possible that your removal attempts have removed a Windows component that's needed. You can go to Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs, and in WinXP on the sidebar there's an Install/Modify Windows Components. If you carefully check off what's supposed to be installed, Windows will usually repair damaged files that are part of the normal Windows system. You will probably need your Windows installation disk, and if you do this you should go DIRECTLY and IMMEDIATELY to Microsoft Update (It should be linked on your Start Menu), since a reinstall may interfere with security fixes since your disk was produced.

The last resort is to go to
SpywareInfo and/or to
Tom Coyote and/or to
Computer Guy.

All three of these are "help sites" run by volunteers; but they generally give expert and specific advice. I haven't personally asked one of them for help, but I've looked at several of their responses and would trust them. There are other similar sites, possibly as capable.

If you go to one of the above, be sure to READ AND FOLLOW EXACTLY the instructions given. Before posting your problems, you should read at least a couple of threads to see how they work, in addition to carefully reading any FAQs and "How Tos."

The usual drill, in summary, is to run the current and latest version of Ad-Aware, then run the current and latest version of Spybot S&D, then run the current and latest version of HiJackThis and start a new thread to post the HiJackThis log. Then wait, and check back for replies.

[For most users the only time you should ever use HiJackThis to change something is when one of these (or another similarly expert advisor) tells you specifically what to change. It's too easy to scramble your registry with this program, - - - unless you're extremely confident of what you're doing.]

John