Spybot problems
Other programs find malware in the Spybot folder
Ths is caused caused by the presence of the recovery folder which contains backed up files and settings. Those files may contain malware, but cannot do any harm because they're quarantined. You may delete the backups when the system is performing ok.
Why does Spybot-S&D flag changes in the Windows Security Center?
Since the Detections Update from July 25, 2005, Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.4 has been detecting Security Risks (renamed to "Windows Security Center" on July 30) associated with Microsoft Security Center Registry changes. This is neither a false positive nor a bug. It is just an information.
Spybot-S&D only wants to bring to your attention that "someone" disabled one or more notifications in the Windows Security Center, e.g. the notifications that your virus protection is not active or not up-to-date.
If you changed the settings yourself you can safely tell Spybot to exclude those detections from further scans.
In order to do so please right-click each in turn, then click "exclude this detection from future scans". That way, should any other part of security center settings change, Spybot will still detect those.
The same is true if you have another security solution installed (like McAfee Security Center or Norton Internet Security). These programs also disable the Windows Security Center in order to take care of things themselves.
The reason why the changes are flagged by Spybot-S&D is that there are also malware programs that disable the notifications so the user doesn't take note of his security tools not being effective.
Why do I get the error message that there is a problem in Hijackers.sbi and I should look into the Include errors.log file
This error should not occur on Spybot 1.4 (and higher) when it does, contact the author
There were some commands added to the new version Spybot-S&D 1.4. Some of the new detection rules do already employ these new commands - earlier versions cannot resolve these commands which is why the error message comes up.
So, please download the current version from one of our mirrors.
You can install this new version right over your existing version but in order to avoid compatibility issues, please remove the following folders before:
Spybot folder\Includes\ (e.g. C:\Program Files\Spybot - Search & Destroy\Includes\)
Spybot folder\Updates\ (e.g. C:\Program Files\Spybot - Search & Destroy\Updates\)
You will also have to update your new version using the integrated udpater.
Why can I no longer access my IE settings?
Internet Explorer tells you to contact your administrator when you try to access the IE settings?
This can happen if you use Spybot-S&D in advanced mode and you have used the Immunize feature without reading all the text ;)
Please start Spybot-S&D again in advanced mode (usually from the Start menu group Spybot - Search & Destroy, until you've already changed the desktop icon to advanced mode), select Tools in the left bar -> IE tweaks.
There you'll see a group Recommended miscellaneous locks. Untick the checkboxes in front of both Lock IE... options. You may need to close all Explorer windows, and maybe even restart Windows before these changes take place.
Hint: this lock function has been added mostly for multi-user environments where you wouldn't want other users of your computer to change your IE settings. If you are the only user of your computer, there's no real need to enable them.
Update or Fix tells me 'No Zip File specified. How can I fix this problem?
This happens if you have ZipMagic from Aladdin Systems (to my knowledge
it came from Ontrack before) installed. ZipMagic displays all zip files
as folders, and even denies other applications access to the real zip file.
To allow another application direct access to zip files, ZipMagic has a setting somewhere on its Options page. You need to add SpybotSD.exe there.
(Sorry, Aladdin Systems was quite arrogant when I asked them about this and didn't provide me with more detailed information, otherwise I would post more detailed instructions here.)
Open the ZipMagic properties, and click on the icon Applications at the left. Check the option These applications see Zip files as files, and press the Add... button. Select the SpybotSD executable in the dialog appearing (usually C:\Program files\Spybot - Search & Destroy\SpybotSD.exe).
This will tell ZipMagic to allow Spybot-S&D access to zip files again.
Source: Spybot