HijackThis |
Main tool which I use to get rid of parasites in Windows (such as spyware, viruses, toolbars and other annoying ActiveX) is HijackThis or HJT. It shows potentialy dangerous registry records, startup items and so on. But be careful - it also shows good items, eg. flashget plugin for IE, windows updates, all startup items. So you need to know what each record or app do. When I'm in doubt, I look at exe, dll files' properties and if there is no description, search filename in google. And some forums such as http://www.merijn.org/
If you dont know how to use HJT - read tutorial and be very carefull, do registry backups!
You can download HijackThis here Official HJT page
And if you have no VB runtime libraries you can download them here VB runtime libraries download
UPDATE: accidently found this page. Great hijackThis log analyzer. Usefull for hjt begginers.