Help!! Adware I can't get rid of

Ok, without drawing this out, I got adware from a friend on AIM. It got into his system and messaged everyone and I thought he was innocently sending me pictures .

Anyway, its called maxifiles, and some other elite bar or some sort. I've tried spysweeper, adaware, and done a chkdsk and nothing has gotten rid of it. I really don't want to reinstall!! This thing is really a pain and its running a couple threads which really bugs me. Is there any other app that can get this thing out of my system?? Thanks in advance, I really appreciate it.

Have you tried microsoft anti-spyware beta? Its worth a try. Then head over to http://www.symantec.com/search/ and see if you can find a removal utility or instructions. And if none of that works, download hijack this:http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html. Run it, and post your log here.

For basic info about spyware removal check this Forums sticky :

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=379516



I would try SpyBot Search and Destroy with updated definitions.
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

If SpyBot doesn't do it I suggest using Hijack This, however with Hijack This it's sometimes easy to see the problem and sometimes it takes some knowledge /understanding of what is normally and safely running on your system.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

Here is some info about manual removal which should be done from safe mode,
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/adware.maxsearch.html


Same as above, kinda, I'm not that fast a poster.

Try Ad-Aware from www.lavasoft.com it's a free software download and comes with weekly adware definition updates.

Hey thanks guys!! Hijack this took care of the problem really easily. I still can't believe nothing else could tackle it though, but what is done is done. Thanks a lot!!!