Search Companion Storm

All of a sudden, my son's pc started popping up a storm of Windows Search Companion windows. They just keep coming, faster than we can close them. A reboot did not stop it.

I cleared the internet cache.

FWIW, in between popups, I was able to run Spybot S&D and a scan with our CA eTrust Integrated Threat Manager, and both came up clean.

I was surprised that I could not find similar reports of this phenomenon here or elsewhere. I assumed it was a new annoyance that would surely have plagued others by now.

I have never seen anything quite like it, but it renders the pc almost impossible to navigate to even try to look for the cause.

I have not had a chance to boot into safe-mode and see what that yields. This started after midnight, and I was not going to get involved at that time.

Any suggestions?

TIA for pointing me in the right direction.

 

Yeah, I know the drill.

I will do all that tonight.

I was just curious if this is a known or named phenomenon or infestation?