Spyware wallpaper

Stacksey

basically an advertisement has become my wallpaper and i cant change it, ive ran adaware and it doesnt locate any spyware, even when i go into display properties the options have become greyed out(disabled) which wont alllow me to change it, if i right click on any photo and select "set as wallpaper" nothing changes, any suggestions would be great, cheers

tadgh

Try a System Restore to a previous state

greglo23

download and run this for a start http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html. if you still have no luck have a look at the security forum .

trojaneater1

what does the advert say?

trojaneater1

What you have is a website desktop.
To simply remove it, go to Control Panel>Display>Desktop>Customize Desktop and select the "Web" tab. Uncheck any websites under "Web Pages

It's not spyware, so scanners wont detect it..............
good luck

**Timbuk2**

If you are sure it is spyware, and not a desktop background, saved from a web browser (what trojaneater1 said in last post), then make sure you have Ad-Aware, Spybot - Search and Destroy and Windows Defender downloaded and installed.

Then run scans in all of these in safe mode

If it is spyware this should do the trick, but before you do this make sure that it is not just an image taken from a web page, like trojaneater1 said

Morpork

Usually the wallpaper will be a .html file located in your system32 folder (can be elsewhere). Depending on the spyware it's probably called "web.html", "wallpaper.html" or "backround.html". You should be able to locate it easy enough and delete it. Obviously you're pc has some spyware on it, so I'd suggest downloading 'Spybot Search & Destroy' and 'Ad Aware' which I think someone posted a link for. Don't forget AVG from Grisoft as you could have virus' too.

Jean Luc

see if it's called spy sheriff. it puts a warning of spyware as your desktop...it's a pure bitch of a progam to remove...:mad:

trojaneater1

i think you'll find i'm right..............................................

Morpork

Yes, trojaneater1, that will remove it in most cases, but it still doesn't remove the spyware which caused the problem in the first place. As Jean Luc said it's possibly from the Spy Sheriff program. Thus - he should still check his pc more thoroughly.

**Timbuk2**

Note that SpySheriff and SpyAxe are the same program with different names (afaik)

If you think you have this when you scan with an anti-virus or something but don't seem to be able to get rid of it (trust me it ain't easy) you can download SpyAxe and SpySheriff removers