OK, new laptop running win 8.1 seems to have been pre-installed with (among other things) something called Muvic Smartbar, which hijacks a search in chrome when you search from the address bar and stick a page of sponsored ads instead of the normal search result. Doesn’t let me uninstall it from control panel. Very annoying. Any one come across this?

I followed some instructions from Here when I took all the shit off my lads laptop.

Thanks. Did you install/use ADWCLEANER?

Yeah, all legit as far as I can see. Used it to kill other stuff on his machine as well…

*disclaimer* I am no expert…..

nice one. seems to have done the trick. thanks

Honestly?

Get a fresh copy of 8.1 and install it without all the pre-installed nonsense. You’ll have stuff crapping up the registry and all sorts.

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/53564-murphy78-s-Windows-8-1-Server-2012r2-with-Update-MSDN-iso-files

That should snag you a legit ISO, you’ll just need to burn it to disc using this:

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

Ignore the Win7 bit, it’ll still work. You’ll need a 4GB USB or a DVD to burn it to (make sure it really is a 4GB USB if you choose to use one as mine is short at 3.4GB or something and can’t take the ISO)

^^ what squirrelking said ^^

If you’re comfortable using torrent sites then you can easily get a copy of Win 8. Use either cmd propmt or unetbootin to make the usb drive bootable.

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

revo uninstaller might be able to take care of that for you if you don’t want to reinstall 8.1. It looks for registry rubbish as well.