Thanks Redder . I installed the Spybot and got it to work . It removed about 10 things . Then I turned off the computer and restarted it , but the annoying start page was still there !!! So I ran Spybot again and it reported nothing . Then just for fun I tried Ad-Aware , which I installed the other day . Surprisingly , it found about 5 things .

I then went into Browser Hijack Blaster , as you suggested . I got into the site , but when I tried to download it the page couldn't be displayed for some reason . Will try later .

So I seem to be back at square one again ! Most frustrating . Also sometimes two and sometimes four things appear in my " favourites " for some reason every time I restart the computer .

What's next ? I have terrible visions of having to uninstall Windows XP and reinstalling it ? !!! Would that fix it ?

Have you tried putting this site in your restricted sites under the security tab? I have done this with sites that have tried to make their site as their homepage and it has worked. Sometime you have to put it in with a wildcard, e.g. www.*.just.find-itnow.com or you could that one and to be on the safe side try it without the wildcard, just plain and simple starting with the www without the * I would also advise putting the other two sites you mentioned in there too.

Good idea SH.

nanman:
You may have to run Ad-aware & Spy-Bot in
safe mode and/or with system restore turned off.
Since I don't have XP, I don't feel qualified to
try & give insrtuctions for this.
Hopefully someone else can help here.

Another thing you can do here at answerpool is
click the "Reply" button at the bottom of the
last post to have your reply added to the same thread.

In this case it would make it easier for duffers
like me to follow what's gone on before.

Best to you.
Mike b. (AKA Byter)

Hi nanman, see if this brings up anything,
click Start/Find or Search/Files or Folders
enter "just find it now" in the search field and if not already selected Local Hard drive C
in the Look in field, can you also try "just find it now.exe" post back with anything that comes up please.

Thanks Soaringhorse . I tried putting the address in the security block , but it had no effect .

I looked into the site you sent qualserve . Pretty daunting for someone who is not terribly computer literate ! I did download Regprot , though .

Thanks . Please let me know if I uninstall Windows XP and reinstall whether that will solve it ?

Have you tried disabling it in the startup utility? Microsoft shows you how to do this on this link:

Disabling startup programs for Win XP
If you look on the left side of the page of this link I sent you to in the advanced search, under Temporarily disabling Startup applications and Processes, click the first Disabling Startup Program by using the system configuration, which will tell you to run msconfig

If that doesn't work, the only other thing I can suggest is Googlebars popup stopper toolbar, which I like to use. I have had no problem with spam from them, just click you don't want any email from them when you download it.
Here's the Google Toolbar

Google's Toolbar does add a little enhancement to your IE browser but doesn't take up much room.

[This message was edited by soaringhorse on 12-25-03 at 06:57 AM.]