my new t42 seems posessed

[snackycat]

Something is going on with my t42 i open IE and strange windows open for gambling sites and when i try and close them they open more. i am going crazy here what is wrong i tried to reboot the t42 and they return, also the computer seems sluggish and unresponsive please help me !

[sugo]

You might have got an unfriendly ad/spyware of some sort. Try Spybot Search and Destroy and Lavasoft Ad-Aware.

[GomJabbar]

Something is going on with my t42 i open IE and strange windows open for gambling sites and when i try and close them they open more. i am going crazy here what is wrong i tried to reboot the t42 and they return, also the computer seems sluggish and unresponsive please help me !

Sounds like you haven't been practicing safe computing.

You should have an up-to-date antivirus program running with automatic updates enabled or else manually update it about every day. You should do a virus scan every week or two, and especially if your computer is acting unusually as you describe.

You should be using a firewall - at least use Windows built-in firewall if nothing else - although there are many better ones out there.

You should run ad/spyware detector and removal tools as Sugo recommended.

You should have Windows update turned on automatically, or run it manually every week or two. Although it seems like I read that Windows updates come out the second Tuesday of every month, I can't remember for sure.

You should avoid using CD's, floppy's, USB keys, etc. that were written to on computers with unknown security in place (such as come from friends, coworkers, etc.). Make sure your children don't do the above.

You shouldn't open e-mail from unknown sources, and be leary of e-mail with attachments even from friends. Make sure your friends purposely attached a file to the e-mail before opening it.

You should back up your hard disk every so often to DVD's, CD's, Tape or another hard drive. You never know when you will get an unbootable hard drive that may need to be reformatted or replaced. How frequently you need to backup really depends on how fast you add important information to your computer.

It's a mean and unforgiving Internet World out there. It's a pain to do all the above, but if your system becomes unusable - then you'll regret you didn't.

I wish you the best in getting your T-42 healthy again.