Screwed desktop xD

[medici]

My friend was infected with adware recently, and I talked him through getting rid of it and fixing everything, but his desktop is messed up.

All of the icons stay highlighted.

I'm stuck, this is pretty much all I know and I wondered if anyone could help out =/

[emokidd69]

there might still b sum adware still on there or even a worm!! bt mayb hr changed the wrong setting :S apart 4rm that me nt no

[raulperez]

that happens on my tablet when i have "desktop inking" on... but i've never seen it on a tower

[danpaul88]

I don't think they are highlighted, I think he just has a background on the text set in the theme options. I am not running XP, but you should be able to go into theme settings and disable the icon text background by setting it to transparent.

[medici]

He says none of the icons work.

[Grimes [3rd ID]]

SpyBot S&D
Ad Aware SE Personal
AVG 7.5
Avast
Nod 32

^ The best antivirus/spyware/malware/etc programs imo.. for this situation, for you are saying 'adware', i would recommend all of the above, or atleast Ad Aware SE

And if that fails... System restore ftw

[medici]

His system restore was supposedly messed up, I was like 'f*ck it do that' first, but then I gave his ad-aware and that fixed most of the problems, his desktop was still messed up though, and since I'd tried everything I could think of before I gave him ad-aware I came to you nerds .

[Grimes [3rd ID]]

n3rds

Try some antivirus...

Has he ran in Safe Mode at all?

[ecstasy]

factory reset...

[Grimes [3rd ID]]

factory reset...

Never works. And it only changes settings :p

[ecstasy]

so, got rid of my vbs.gaggle.D virus (FTW)

[SpAzErMaN]

Back up files, Reinstall windows.

[Nightma12]

He says none of the icons work.

Are you sure they are icons?

Perhaps its just a wallpaper image of the icons? lol

[ecstasy]

have you tried making new shortcuts?

[danpaul88]

Aye, it's possible the links were changed to not actually point anywhere...