Is this a virus?

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anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com - 10 Jan 2004 04:46 GMT

Everytime i do a search in AOL.....when i click on a
highlighted website...instead of it taking me to the
website i get a message which pretains to what i'm
searching but instead of getting to the website...it
says..to find out more about this such product...click on
this link. Once i click on the link...I get another
search engine that says Cool Web Search. I thought i read
somewhere in one of the posts about this cool web thing.
Is it a virus? My Norton does a one step checkup every
Friday but it didn't say anything about it. I think i'll
try and run my Adaware to see if anything comes up. I've
been pretty dilligent about running these things since I
had that widespread problem with no desktop or start
button.

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Jim Eshelman - 10 Jan 2004 08:38 GMT

Not a virus... but a definite kind of malicious software. You have the
CoolWebSearch parasite. Here is the only tool that I know that will remove
it: http://www.merijn.org/files/cwshredder.zip

Download this and run it. When through, you might want to check your system
for other parasites. See:
The Parasite Fight! http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm

To immunize yourself against CoolWebSearch in particular, see:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bull
etin/MS03-011.asp

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Jim Eshelman, MS-MVP Windows
Windows Support Center: http://aumha.org/
Fighting Parasites: http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm
Computer Health: http://aumha.org/a/health.htm
Troubleshooting: http://aumha.org/a/tshoot.htm

> Everytime i do a search in AOL.....when i click on a
> highlighted website...instead of it taking me to the
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> had that widespread problem with no desktop or start
> button.

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