So I finally got rid of the source of one of my Windows frustrations. A while ago, I don't know how, a malicious program hacked into my computer, so that whenever I type in an incomplete URL, instead of going to MSN search, I get redirected to 'spacesea.net', a broken search frameset. When I close that window, an invisible window is spawned that throws up popup ads as much as an hour later.

The bitch is that it took a while to figure out that's where the ads were coming from. I never noticed the invisible window, discernable only by the box in the taskbar that says "Internet Explorer" but I could close all the windows on my screen, and 20 minutes later a stupid popup would come up.

Okay, long and short (and I'm posting this as much so people searching for 'popups' 'popunder ads' 'search takeover' or any of a number of other keywords will find this) is that the program adds a line to your 'hosts' file in Windows. This tricks your computer into thinking that the MSN search domain actually points to the spacesea.net IP address. to fix it, search for 'hosts' on your computer. Open the file in Notepad. Erase the entire line that has an IP # and says msn.search.microsoft.com or somesuch (*don't erase any other lines*). Save the file.

That oughta do it. you might have to restart to have it take effect.