Removal of Info Mash search redirection

[Guest Jim Favre]

Somehow a search engine re-director got into my wife's laptop that sends searches to "Info Mash". MSE has been in operation on all of our PC's since it was first released and until now has performed well. MSE is set to upgrade the definitions and run a full scan of all drives, removables included, every night at about 2:00am. Apparently MSE failed to stop it from it from getting in and now that it is resident, fails to detect or remove the issue.

For what it's worth, the laptop has exhibited two odd quirks, one two days ago and another yesterday. I see no direct connection to this issue but, too much info is always better than not enough.

Two days ago I happened to look over my wife's shoulder while she was using her laptop and noticed that the MSE icon normally visible in the Systray was not there? Any maintenance done on her laptop is handled by me, my wife doesn't go there and I had not changed any settings in MSE or elsewhere. When she was finished I checked MSE to see if all was in order, which it was. I rebooted her laptop and the MSE icon returned to the Systray.

Yesterday, the laptop was running with I.E. and Outlook open, This is common since she checks her e-mail and browses a bit while eating breakfast and then leaves for work without closing down. About 2 hours later I was seated next to her laptop eating my breakfast and reading a magazine when the Critical Error beep sounded and a "Blue Screen" popped open. Her laptop is set to reboot on errors so I did not get a chance to read the screen. Upon reboot, the message stated that the computer was recovering from a critical error and I proceeded with the recommended actions and sent the report to Microsoft.

The canned auto-response said there had been a driver issue, most likely the result of recently installed hardware. Nothing has been installed in months but, I ran a full Windows Update scan to see if it found a driver upgrade or other issue. Win Update finished and no driver upgrades or other issues were reported.

Today she "googled" something and the search redirect to "Info Mash" occurred. I searched the MSE site for any clues to remove the issue without success and so I threw caution to the wind and decided to post an inquiry. I do so reluctantly since asking questions on the users group tends to unleash an abundance of arrogant know-it-all wise guys who love to send insulting "smarter than thou" responses.

Thanks, Jim

 

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