i am having problems with what i think might be an adware virus. it has
taken over my homepage and also desktop back ground with a ad about the
importance of purchasing a program that will delete any trace of
websites that i have visited . when i try to delete it keeps defaulting
to a web page that wants me to purchase this product . i have spybot
search and detroy put nothing seems to work. what can i do.

Also worth trying Ad-Aware from

http://www.lavasoftusa.com

Once you've got it disinfected, get a copy of Firefox from

http://www.mozilla.com

and use this instead of IE in future.