Eliminating a nuisance program

[Archon_Wing]

Hi

I am about to give up on this and just re-format the hard drive. 

One of my sons suffered a brain-dead moment a couple of weeks ago.  His ditzy friend Mikey told him about an 'upgrade' to MSN messenger and offered to send the file.  Without taking a moment to consider that this is from MIKEY (if Mikey said the sky was blue, my son would check first before agreeing) he hit the 'accept' button.  ARGH

The program in question is, I think, called memo face.exe

I have removed it from the start-up menu (via unchecking with msconfig).  It has installed itself in the Windows Applications folder, under the heading 'two ford' along with another one called 'bagsfasthideaway'.  I have deleted both of those folders, and then cleared the recycled bin.  And then run msconfig again to make sure that it is not checked.

I have done this procedure a few times.  And the damned things keep coming back.  I don't know enough about registry files to muck around in there myself.

Norton does not think it is a virus.  AdAware and Spybot do not recognize it as a problem item. 

But the damn thing keeps bolluxing up my browser, giving me pop-ups (even though I do have a pop-up blocker) that wants me to go install another program that will 'clean' my computer.  I am also getting pop-ups that want to send me to a gambling site.  Further, of course, this makes my whole system run slower, and with my little computer, that is not a Good Thing™.

So, before I start the painful process of trying to save data files externally, prior to the re-formatting, does anyone have an idea of what I could do instead?

Shadow, who is (sadly) the only computer maintenance worker in this household
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If I am correct, the program installed is "Messenger Plus". Head over to the control panel and remove it. Then, if for some reason your son reinstalls the program tell him to not install any additional sponsor programs the install asks for.

The actual program isn't causing the problem, but it includes optional spyware. Yea, don't ask me why. :ph34r: People have used the program without installing any extras and have had no problems.

The actual spyware included with Messenger Plus is called "LOP." It's famous for being a pain in the ass to remove, so I suggest the uninstall