Thanks again to everyone for their help.. I've downloaded Volant'ssuggestion for now, which is doing the job :))

Thankyou for all the info given :))
I did the google toolbar thing, but as suspected, I don't have 5.5 so didn't get the one bit I really wanted which was the popup blocker :-D
gonna give volant's suggestion a try :)

I'm not entirely sure I want to change my browser.. just want to stop the pop-ups, preferably for free :)

Backoff, yep, had a look at that having done a search through this board .. doesn't it only work if you have 5.5 ? not that I'm entirely sure what I DO have ?!? Is there a simple way of me knowing ?
Is stopzilla any good that you know of ?

could anyone please recommend (as in use it yourself and have found it to be good)a free, reliable pop-up blocker please ??

from a brief search, it appears to be a 'dialer' .. for info and manual removal instructions, try :
http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/library/mostrardialer.b/index.phtml
or
http://www.inet-mates.com/articles/2_rm_mostrar.html

There really is tons of stuff out there !!
http://appleblossomart.ezthemes.com/pcenhance/ic/main.phtml?blank+Computers
http://www.iconnews.freeserve.co.uk/icon_page.htm

what sort of icons are you looking for ? You say for work, but not knowing what you do... ?

thanks BBW.. though this being my work pc, I shouldn't really be downloading stuff atall.. and our firewalls etc really ought to be keeping any nastiness out :)

Thanks everyone.. he seems to have fixed it !!
We'll see how it goes, I may still be asking for that link Aragon, but at the moment it all looks good :))
I've lived with it since January, and it took him 2 minutes to sort out.. LOL.. I told him he wouldn't be able to go to the pub until he'd done it.. that worked ;-D
Thanks again for the help and suggestions :0)

LOL.. I know what DOS is :-D now I've just got to go talk to our sytems admin man before he goes down the pub at lunchtime ! It's his last day today, so his last chance to fix it :)
I'll let you know.. thankyou :))

Some months ago, I inadvertently downloaded a file sp.exe onto my work pc.. it doesn't seem to affect a great deal apart from lots of words appear as links that shouldn't be, that take me to ntsearch engine.. and some sites that I should be able to see, I can't atall.
Well, I can't delete this file .. access denied, source may be in use.. and we've tried uninstalling and reinstalling explorer with no success.
Has anybody else seen this before and have any ideas how to deal with it please ?