Ok. So I need some input from all of you computer whizzes who are familiar with the Microshaft products. I once again need to reformat my computer, as some kind of spyware has installed itself, and is screwing around with my system. My question to you is this: I need to do a backup of my Internet Explorer bookmarks and the Outlook Express emails and address book. I could easily find these files with Netscape, but the Internet Explorer files seem to elude me. I thought I found them prior to the last format, but alas it was not to be. I don't want to go through that hell again. Any ideas where to find these files for a backup?

for outlook express, look here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;270670


internet explorer bookmarks are called 'favorites'. depending on the version of windows and the version of internet explorer you have, it may be a folder in your windows directory or in your profile ('\winnt\profiles\<your_user_name>\favorites' for windows nt 4.0; something like '\documents and settings\...' for windows 2000).


- clemmentine ( [MoR]Eowyn / Trinity. / Maiden_Arashi )

May be a dumb question and dont know what happened the last time but why not just get rid of the spyware? you can use Ad-aware and spybot search and destroy i think them 2 combined gets rid of all the spyware
Dark :roll: :roll: :evil: :twisted:

Thanks for the help, everyone. I used some of the cleaning programs that were suggested, and they found alot of extraneous crap on my system. As far as the backup files, I found them and can safely reformat anytime needed without losing everything again (I usually wipe the system about 1 to 2 times a year to keep things running smoothly).

I just installed a free program called Adaware6.0 today...some how got one of those myway search bars in my IE...and I coulnt' find all of the files and reg entries manually...

It worked great. Deleted all of the files and reg entries. The base version is free and can be found at:
http://download.com.com/3000-2144-10214 ... ag=lst-0-1

Btw, when you format...don't forget to copy your address book too. I always seem to forget....lol.

Bigi get spybot search and destoy as well it gets the bits ad-aware can miss tho ad-aware is good
Dark

I noticed that after spybot updated itself the first time, it never has found another update. I wonder if it's still good actually even though it did find stuff that one time that adaware didn't.

on mine spybot has updated 2 times i think in 3 months it doesnt update any were near as often as ad-aware, it updates every week i think but it still finds one or two that ad-aware misses but ad-aware is catching 99% so am happy running both
Dark :twisted: :twisted:

Sometimes I double check for updates on one of the other mirrors, rather than using the default Kolla.net

Tonight Ad-aware caught a tracking cookie that Spybot missed. I try to use both regularly. In fact I always check for junk after each internet session, just to be on the safe side. :wink: