system restore and spyware

minor threat

so i've found myself victim of the smitfraud-C and smitfraud-C.toolbar888 pieces of spyware. it's my own damn fault too, but that's besides the point. i've been fighting the damn things all day. after several boots in safe mode and running ad aware, spybot, windows defender, norton antivirus and smitfraudfix, the damn things still open up pop-ups in internet explorer (i use firefox).

i haven't yet run hijackthis or figured out what to do beyond that. i'm considering running AVG anti-spyware but honestly, if five other programs can't get this thing, i don't have much hope.

my main question here is this: i have system restore turned on and several points before i became infected available to me. would running system restore get rid of this thing or not? i doubt it, but i figured it was so simple it might just work.

stigweard

No, a system restore only brings the drivers and registry back to the last restore point. It does not uninstall software. Give the new avg antispyware a try. It used to be ewido, which many people recommend to use on various help sites.

Muriden

This might be a bit too technical for you to want to do and a hell of a lot more work than just plain formatting. But if you have another clean machine to work on I'd suggest building a windows live CD with BartPE and install the adaware plugin.
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

It will run before windows boots and you should be able to scan your harddrive without anything being accessed on it so you might be able to get things that running in safe mode didn't.

Seattle Thread

Give Smitrem a shot. It's what I used to get rid of the 'fraud when I worked as a repairman.