Your computer may be infected with spyware if it is experiencing one or more of the following symptoms:

• When you start your computer, or when your computer has been idle for many minutes, your Internet browser opens to display Web site advertisements.
• When you use your browser to view Web sites, other instances of your browser open to display Web site advertisements.
• Your Web browser's home page unexpectedly changes.
• Web pages are unexpectedly added to your Favorites folder.
• New toolbars are unexpectedly added to your Web browser.
• (Other than the Google Toolbar or Yahoo! Toolbar.)
• You cannot start a program.
• When you click a link in a program, the link does not work.
• Your Web browser suddenly closes or stops responding.
• It takes a much longer time to start or to resume your computer.
• Components of Windows or other programs no longer work.
• Your computer begins to play the James Bond - 007 theme...:-)

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;827315

The primary utilities I use for removing spyware and adware from office systems are "SpyBot Search & Destroy" and "Ad-Aware". Particularly difficult bugs are researched at the "Spyware Guide Database" (http://www.spywareguide.com/) - and other online sources - and are removed per the results of that research.

If your computer is experiencing any of the above symptoms:

Ad-Aware standard edition is a free application and can be obtained via: http://www.lavasoft.de/.

"SpyBot Search and Destroy" is also a free application and can be obtained via: http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html.

On both utilities, make sure to run the update feature before each scan and scan weekly. Be Wary of pop-up adds which state that your computer may be infected with spyware...and then prompt you to download a utility to remove it...

As you will see, the only other application mentioned on the Microsoft reference site is "PestPatrol," which can be purchased at http://www.pestpatrol.com.


Additional Resources:

More information on Spyware and Adware can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/default.mspx
and via my website at: http://www.sisqtel.net/~pctech/computing.html#spyware.