Iv'e got this nasty virus that makes my entire desktop black, all I can see are the icons. Ive got no way of using my virus scanner because well... I can't see it. When I come on the internet all I can see is the web page and none of the toolbars, ect. ect. does anyone know how I could fix this? or will I have to re-format?

if by now you havent found a way to clean the virus, go ahead and reformat :-/

No the nastiest one is that what changes your wallpaper to gay porn...

lol ville you should try fixing it before you reformat. uhh i don't really wanna explain it. try using safe mode in ms-dos. then find where your anti-virus prog is located normally just do /cd (hdd name):\program files\(name of anitivirus). and then run it and see if it can find it. if not just reformat. cuz thats always good unless you have important info on the hdd

c:/windows/system.ini

check shell and see if it says explore.exe

hmmm
juicy, listen, you can see the site right, but you cant see the toolbar...
try opening the anti-virus, and put the browser as its background, that way you might be able to see the anti-virus and then take care of it...
if that wont work, you might wanna try turning on the pc in safe mode and see if it still takes effect, if it still does, you should ask someone with more pc experience then me :P
those are some *practical* ideas :P
gl

smoke the virus out with matches!

I tried running in safe mode, everythings still black.

Found your virus, you appear to have Trojan.WinTrash
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/trojan.wintrash.html

This is the Symantec security page on it, it should include a free removal tool and/or removal instructions. EDIT: Actually, according to their instructions, you need to reinstall windows, so touch luck =(

There's one more option, however at this point I don't think it will work. Go here, www.housecall.antivirus.com they offer an online virus scanner that you can use for free, just incase you ever run into a situation like this and can't use your virus scanner.