I found this 180 Search Assistant loaded on my computer 2 weeks ago and cannot seem to get rid of it. I went through the procedure like it said and I think it's a bunch of BS...it's still there. Norton Antivirus, Spybot S&D and Adaware didn't find anything on several scans. I went through the control panel and removed the program and it says it's gone but the Icon is still on the bottom of my screen and I cannot seem to get rid of it. Something (I believe it's that) keeps changing my connection, security level and default search in Internet Explorer. Anybody else having this problem? :banghead:

If all that is left is the icon you can go to start then run, type in msconfig if you have windows and that will take you where you can do a selective startup. Open the start tab and you can add or delete startup programs. It worked for me. maybe someone else has a better way. John

Download HijackThis from here: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

Save HijackThis to some good place on your computer that is NOT a "temp" folder. Run it. Choose to "save a log file". Open the logfile and send the contents here. Shifty should be able to help you find out what is causing the problem.

symantec.com has a removal tool http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/Fix180Sh.exe

You can read about how to remove the 800 assistant here
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/adware.180search.html
You need to read their write up on this one, removal is real involved.



I have'nt tried this tool yet but symantec has come out with good removal tools in the past.

You may need to run this in safe mode for it to clean out the bad stuff.

Good Luck!

Thanks guys. Ivancto, I'm not sure if I'm computer friendly enough to run the Symatec procedure or not, but maybe I can find someone who is. ;)

That is one of the nasty spammer items to remove. Here is the only way I found to completely remove it..

MANUALLY UNINSTALL 180 SEARCH ASSISTANT
• Close down the msbb.exe process.
• "CTRL-ALT-DEL"
• "Processes" tab
• Click "msbb.exe"
• Click "End Process"
• Check "Windows Task Manager" to make sure msbb.exe is no longer running. There is a chance you could invoke it again, such as running the uninstall under "Add or Remove Programs", which you should not do. If it is still there, close it down as previously explained.
• Find 180 Search Assistant using Windows' Search:
• "Start"
• "Search"
• "For Files or Folders..."
• "All files and folders"
• Enter "msbb" in "All or part of the file name:"
• Click "Search"
• Wait for full results.
• You will see the install files in "C: \ Program Files \ 180Solutions" and prefetch files in "C: \ WINDOWS \ Prefetch". Delete them all. You may delete them directly out of the "Search Results" window you are looking at.
• Visit "C: \ Program Files" on your computer
• Delete "180Solutions"
• Visit "C: \ Windows \ System32"
• Check out all the "mdbb..." files. If you have more than the few that are mentioned here below, and they all have the same date/time stamp, then please contact me and let me know of the newer files... then delete them too!
• Delete "msbb.log" (or you may view it in NotePad to view what they are logging from you)
• Delete "msbb_kyf.dat"
• Delete "msbbau.dat"
• Now to delete it out of your (hidden) startup menu (not your un-hidden startup menu):
• "Start"
• "Run..."
• Type "msconfig" and press Enter (This brings up the "System Configuration Utility" which shows all the startup programs. For your information, "Start", "Programs", "Startup" does not show a full list.)
• "Startup" tab
• See "msbb" in the startup? Ok, this was just to show you that it does exist there. This is not how you delete it. You can disable it from here, but let's just delete it completely instead. Close down "System Configuration Utility", here's how to remove it:
• "Start"
• "Run..."
• Type "regedit" and press Enter
• Go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Run"
• Delete "msbb" entry (This removes 180 Search Assistant from the "System Configuration Utility" startup menu. Go see that it is gone.)
• Go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Uninstall"
• Delete "msbb" directory (This removes the annoying and false "Uninstall 180search Assistant" entry in "Add or Remove Programs" now that we have already manually deleted the program's files and directories. Go see that it is gone if you wish.)
• Go to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software"
• Delete "180solutions" directory
• Delete "msbb" directory
• Go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE"
• Delete "180solutions" directory
• Delete "msbb" directory
• Please, if anyone knows of any other registry entries or anything else this annoying spyware program leaves on your sytesm, do not hesitate to contact me and let me know so that I can append this information to this uninstall tutorial.
• Check out http://www.pestpatrol.com/pestinfo/n/ncase.asp for additional uninstall instructions that list even more processes, registry entries, directories and files to delete. There are so many different configurations of 180 Search Assistant that it is very hard to list them all. My uninstall instructions worked for my particular configuration, but yours may be different. So please check out that link. Whenever I get the time, I will append the knowledge from that article into this one.
• Done! At last!

Thanks to all for your assistance. I downloaded the norton tool for removing the basty nastard and I think it got rid of it. I downloaded Windows SP2 and all the other windows updates so I think all is well. After I loaded SP2 my internet connection wouldn't work so I spent about 2 hrs. on the phone with SBC tech support and she helped me get that going again. Now I can search directly from the address bar again so whatever little gremlin was causing that is hopefully gone forever. Thanks again guys! :) :)