can't install, or see, spybot S&D
 

grrrrr

first off, xp home w/sp1a, and all other updates except sp2 on a dell laptop..

had a ton of virus'....got those cleaned off.

now spyware.....damn the spyware....was able to download, install and run adawareSE...no prob...it found a bunch of stuff, but as you know, spybot and adaware usually find different things.

spybot however, just won't be seen. When I try to download it, it gets to 99% then an error that says "cannot copy file: cannot read from the source file or disk"

remember, I was able to download adaware, google toolbar, etc...so it's not a problem with downloading files as a whole...and I tried to d/l from a couple different sites just to weed that out too. majorgeeks.com and download.com for example..

also, when I connect to my network share, which has my spyware killers (adaware and spybot), the computer sees the adaware folder, but the spyware folder is invisible, like it's not even there!

also, tried renaming the spybot installer to 123.exe, and running that....same thing. I see a command prompt window real quick, then nothing.

I've tried stopping several services, and killing several apps in task mgr, still won't work.

Can you think of anything, or has anyone seen this before?? Thanks in advance!

sounds like you got something REALLY nasty that's trying to bury Spybot and not let you get to it. Almost sounds like a new vx2 variant.

I'd try some fanagling in safe mode, to see if that'll get around whatever is lurking.

I've seen this on a computer before, if you have access to another computer with a burner download spybot and rename the executable to something like abc.exe, then you should be able to install it and run it. The bug in question messes with explorers way of displaying and accessing files