New XP quirks, need help

[rkoenn]

I am fairly adept at installing and running and troubleshooting Windows XP, but over the last couple of days I have a couple of problems I cannot resolve. One is from IE6 I cannot get to Google, it says the page is unavailable. I have checked all my IE settings. I am inside a router but no other computers on my network have the problem. Next is I cannot change my screen background from anything other than the canned Windows backgrounds. When I attempt it I can browse to other pics but they do not take. I just end up with the previous canned windows selection. I even had a different one until I changed it and got locked into this mess. All thoughts are appreciated.

Also, I find when I first go to Yahoo now I initially get a blank page. No error messages or such. Then when I hit the refresh button the page comes up normally. Is this possibly related to the trojan. It is only at Yahoo's main page that this happens from what I can tell so far.

 

[CTho9305]

you've been hacked (well, you have a trojan). there's a few threads at AT. search for "hosts file hack" or something like that.

edit: link for the lazy

 

[rkoenn]

Thanks for your help. That resolved it. It was a hosts file with a mess of entries similar to the other guys post. I know a bit about the hosts file but hadn't even thought of that. Unknown yet how it got into my system and wondering if anything else got in I don't know about. I did share a directory for a day yesterday which is a possibility as I have shared with write privileges before and found things in my system after that. I do have virus programs running but apparently it didn't catch it. That is my only thought. The other systems in the home network do not even have the hosts file, blank or otherwise, on them. Again, thanks so much, it had be stumped.