Hotbar and DSO exploit

i've ben working on a PC installed with XP Home. There is something on it that exploit the DSO exploit in Internet Explorer. I can find it with Spybot Search and Destroy but I can't seem to get rid of it. Every time I use Spybot, the problem goes away and I can launch Internet Explorer. But if i reboot the computer, I can't launch IE. If I run Spybot again, the DSO is found again. Strange. I tried turning off System Restore and updating everything but no luck. As long as the computer is on, IE works fine.

Also I can't get rid of the Hotbar folder in c:\program files. Launching IE will always create the folder.

Any help is appreciated.

Sasser Worm and spyware

Yesterday I helped a friend fixed her computer, which was infected with the Sasser Worm. No problem, except that her computer also had a ton of spyware. What happened was that the spyware was using up so much system resources that there was really no way to update Windows fast enough before the Sasser worm shut down the system. And I couldn't get rid of the spyware first either.

If this happens to you, boot up in safe mode, update Windows, get rid of spyware with Ad aware or something similar. Reboot normally.

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