*Sigh* Off-topic.

[Valerie]

(Problem's been solved, at least temporarily.)

T, Jason, I am really sorry about all the off-topic threads I make.

Alrighty, so, I'm on my husband's laptop. This morning, I signed onto my own computer to check Facebook.
The only thing there was my background. So I restarted. (It's Windows Vista, btw.)

It started up alright, all of my stuff was there. Okay, cool, so now let's open something, like, I dunno, Firefox.
You know how, when your computer doesn't know what to use to open a file, it asks you what to use? It did that.
And my only option to use to open Firefox was Firefox. Confused, I opted not to open it and tried to open another browser.
It didn't know what to use to open it and asked if I wanted to use Firefox to open Internet Explorer.

So I tried to open a few other programs.
I tried Paint. It asked if I wanted to use Firefox to open it.
I tried the calculator. It asked if I wanted to use Firefox to open it.
I tried Corel Painter.It asked if I wanted to use Firefox to open it.
I tried Windows Live Messenger. It asked if I wanted to use Firefox to open it.
I tried Eset. It asked if I wanted to use Firefox to open it. (This is my anti-virus. Kind of a big deal.)

Whenever I accepted one of these, it would prompt me to download whatever it is. (So "Do you want to save firefox.exe?") I always selected no.

At this point, I gave up on programs and went to check if files would work.
I tried an MP3. It asked if I wanted to use Firefox to open it.
I tried a picture. It ask-- Wait, no, that one worked. It opened, without asking me what to use, with the Windows Image Gallery thing.

The only other thing that seems to work so far is "My Computer." Folders will open, and the contents are there, but nothing seems to work without asking me if I want touse Firefox to open it.

So I went to work, came home, and gave in. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do want to open Firefox with Firefox. I still didn't "save" it.

I got this:

1

(Yes, I took a picture of it with a cell phone. I couldn't c/p to Paint, obviously.)

Swagbucks is a thing I use. I'm too lazy to explain what it is, but it's never used something like that as long as I've used it. Still, I have a Swagbucks toolbar (on Firefox), and I'm wondering if that might be related. It's the only guess I've got. I checked my installed stuff and there's nothing new that I don't recognize. I tried to call my dad, because he's good with this sort of thing, but he was asleep, so I have to wait for him to call me back later. Until then, I'm kind of freaking out* and wondering if any of you guys might have an idea.

The computer's also restarting itself out of nowhere.That's probably related, I guess,

*It's just a computer, but I've got literally years of drawings and writing on that computer. And Compy's gettin'up there in age, too, so... (I've had her about three years now.)

[Mr. Brightside]

Toolbars are evil. (Though... I'd probably have mixed this into the other off-topic thread...)

A lot of newer computers have ways of resetting system data without affecting files too much - if it's Vista, '08, it's likely. Or if not, you can burn a Linux boot CD, start from that, and use it to retrieve your files for a backup.

[Kamino Neko]

Is that offerspv thing coming up on sites other than swagbucks? Just trying to figure out the likelihood that it's connected to the problem, not something swagbucks or one of their advertisers (does swagbucks have ads?) did. (All I can find out about the offerspv site is that it was only registered in September, which is a bit of a bad sign, considering...)

[Valerie]

Toolbars are evil. (Though... I'd probably have mixed this into the other off-topic thread...)

GSHAGSAJ YOU'RE RIGHT WHY DIDN'T I DO THAT iamsosorryforclutteringtheboardlikethis. ;_;

What exactly does "newer" mean? Like newer models? I got mine about three years ago, and I think it was already a year-old model by that point.
Oh, I forgot to mention that it's restarting itself now, too. *goes back to edit that bit in*

[Valerie]

Is that offerspv thing coming up on sites other than swagbucks? Just trying to figure out the likelihood that it's connected to the problem, not something swagbucks or one of their advertisers (does swagbucks have ads?) did. (All I can find out about the offerspv site is that it was only registered in September, which is a bit of a bad sign, considering...)

I haven't tried anything else yet, and I went ahead and shut down the computer until I could figure out what the problem might be. There's some primal part of my brain that thinks that'll put the issue aside until later. XD But I can find out.

[Valerie]

Okay, so, I turned it back on and opened Firefox. This time, it was fine until I went to Swag Bucks.(I'm not saying Swag Bucks is what caused the following, it may have been the moment I went to any site.)



A blank page with a weird URL opened in the tab next to the tab I used.

I tried going to another site, but it didn't do anything else weird like that. I restarted the browser and it didn't open the weird tab again when I went to a site. (I tried a few times, and one of those times I used Swag Bucks again as the site I went to, to be sure.)

I also took some other pictures which I will be adding to the first post, just to be sure everything's clear.

[Kamino Neko]

That just looks like a mis-configured ad. Could be something naughty, but clickbank is an ad vendor with, so far as I can tell, a good reputation (and hop.clickbank.net is legitimately part of clickbank), so it'd be the entity that purchased the ad that did it, and clickbank itself would be a dead end.

I suspect, then, that swagbucks is just messing up their ads, and that's not connected to your problem.

[Zanosuke Kurosaki]

A couple questions:

1. What sort of security programs (spyware blockers, ad blockers, virus scanners, etc) do you have set-up?
2. When was the last time any and all of these was updated?

3. I think it's time to look up how to start up your Vista machine in Safe Mode (with networking, if the option is there), and run something like Spybot Search and Destroy (it's a program that is very good at catching and stopping what your virus scanner doesn't.) Truthfully, this sounds like a virus to me, possibly related to the Swagbucks toolbar.

[Freemage]

My wife's in IT. The first thing she does when a friend/family member has a complaint about a computer is ask them if they've got toolbars installed. If so, she asks if they're willing to get rid of them. If not, she'll agree to help, but tell them flat out that even if she manages to clear it up, the problem will almost certainly come back again, as bad if not worse. Even benign toolbars open your computer up to malware exploits by other people. They're almost never worth it if you want to use your machine for anything than whatever the toolbar is related to.

[Otaking]

A hijack style virus can write into your registry and link all your executables into the virus.exe instead. If your anti-virus breaks this association by maybe quarantining or deleting the virus.exe without fixing all the registry entries that point to it, you will get behavior like you described above where you try calculator.exe and windows is still looking for virus.exe, but it's not there so it asks you if you want to use something else to open it. Something seems to have repaired registry on your restart since you could use your executables again but you may still have nasty stuff lurking on your system.

I'm having a lot of recent experience with this because there's a real rash of "Win 7 Fake Anti-virus 2012" virus and company out there, I caught it, tried to manually delete it at first and got behavior like you had at first because while I deleted the virus.exe, I didn't manually clean up the registry entries because omfgtheregistry, anyway here is a very thorough link on it.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-r ... yware-2012

Malware Bytes is supposed to stop this one, I know first hand Kapersky lets it through, it did some squawking when I picked it up but it got to rewrite my registry anyway.

Win 7 system restore got me out of the problem cleanly, set up your automatic system restore if you have the option. I'm running Malware Bytes and Kapersky both at this point.

[Valerie]

Thanks so much for helping me, guys. I basically did what Otaking said (system restore) after asking my Dad (he was completely baffled and it was the only thing he could suggest other than a complete reinstall of Windows). Everything seems to be working cleanly now.

I uninstalled the Swag Bucks toolbar before doing the system restore. I just... really liked using that toolbar. D: But I can live without it. I think I might write to them to let them know about the weird ads, though. I still don't know for certain if that had anything to do with it, but it's worth mentioning to them just in case there's a problem they haven't found yet.

Thank you guys so so so so much. I was freaking out. XD

[Zanosuke Kurosaki]

Thanks so much for helping me, guys. I basically did what Otaking said (system restore) after asking my Dad (he was completely baffled and it was the only thing he could suggest other than a complete reinstall of Windows). Everything seems to be working cleanly now.

I uninstalled the Swag Bucks toolbar before doing the system restore. I just... really liked using that toolbar. D: But I can live without it. I think I might write to them to let them know about the weird ads, though. I still don't know for certain if that had anything to do with it, but it's worth mentioning to them just in case there's a problem they haven't found yet.

Thank you guys so so so so much. I was freaking out. XD

You're welcome. I advise Spyboy Search + Destroy for your new install(to go along with whatever virus scanner you're using), as it makes a note of when something attempts to change the registry, and alerts the user. Also, here's a helpful bit - do a bit of research on a toolbar or whatever before you install it, the results could save you from a reformat.

[Valerie]

Thanks so much for helping me, guys. I basically did what Otaking said (system restore) after asking my Dad (he was completely baffled and it was the only thing he could suggest other than a complete reinstall of Windows). Everything seems to be working cleanly now.

I uninstalled the Swag Bucks toolbar before doing the system restore. I just... really liked using that toolbar. D: But I can live without it. I think I might write to them to let them know about the weird ads, though. I still don't know for certain if that had anything to do with it, but it's worth mentioning to them just in case there's a problem they haven't found yet.

Thank you guys so so so so much. I was freaking out. XD

You're welcome. I advise Spyboy Search + Destroy for your new install(to go along with whatever virus scanner you're using), as it makes a note of when something attempts to change the registry, and alerts the user. Also, here's a helpful bit - do a bit of research on a toolbar or whatever before you install it, the results could save you from a reformat.

Well, in the case of the Swag Bucks toolbar, I'd been using it for months with no ill effects. So I'm still not sure how related it as, but I'm going to err on the side of caution regarding it for now.

I'm looking into the Spybot Search + Destroy right now. My computer's old enough that I get kind of paranoid about everything that ever happens, so the more preventative steps, the better. XD

[Zanosuke Kurosaki]

A couple of the posts I ran across about Swagbucks were from the last couple of months, so it's a pretty new development it seems. Definitely go for the cautious approach, it saves a ton of future headaches - to say nothing of gives your friendly neighborhood techie more time to keep playing our networked games.

[Muttley]

Browser hijack, probably through the toolbar. As others have suggested, remove all add-on toolbars to limit your vulnerability. Sounds like there may be some other malware that has got in either with the hijack or afterwards.

I'd use Malwarebytes anti-malware to scan for infection and hopefully remove it. Cross check with SuperAntiSpyware. I've used both on machines (usually my son's) with bad infections.

Both these tools are free, and are usually very good, but may not be able to remove all infections, especially newly-developed ones. If you've got one of those, your last port of call is to wipe the disk and reinstall everything. Otherwise, search for similar infections and see what has been used by others to cure them.