Help!! Internet Explorer popup windows keep coming up on my desktop!!?

I've started having this problem with my Windows XP about two weeks ago. Out of nowhere (even though I'm not using Internet Explorer), a bunch of IE popup windows come up on my desktop, literally dozens of them. A lot of them contain some kind of chinese advertisement (which I cannot understand).

I cannot find the source of these popups as I'm not even running IE. I suspect some kind of adware installed in my OS, so I've scanned fully the HD with my norton antivirus (with the latest virus definitions), but it didn't find anything.

Would I need something other than anti-virus to get rid of this? I would uninstall my IE if I could (since I use Firefox as my default browser), but XP doesn't allow you to do that.

Help!! Internet Explorer popup windows keep coming up on my desktop!!?ies

there has been a bunch of different pop up coming up lately saying they are trojans viruses. I have Nortons and antispyware and could not get rid of them and tried a bunch of other suggestions too. The one that worked was to go to internet options, click on advance tab and reset all options. You will have to logged out of the browser and logged back in, but it was the only thing that worked. Good luck*********

Help!! Internet Explorer popup windows keep coming up on my desktop!!?windows update internet explorer

Download AVG antispyware free and update and then scan...
AdAware by Lavasoft or Spybot S%26amp;D from security.dekolla -either should find and fix your problem. Both are freeware but you can get a paid version of AdAware with more tools. Spybot in advanced mode has LOTS of happy little tools, but some are trouble if you aren't familiar with the concepts. You could download and run MSN's malicious Software tool, and or Windows Defender...both free.
This is probably a problem with your Norton. Since it's so commonly used by people, hackers therefore know the codes to get around it. Try going to download.com and using AVG, Adaware S%26amp;D, or Sybot. I've been using these freewares with no problems whatsoever. I hope I could help you.
I had a similiar problem. next time you get a pop up, copy the address thats in the address bar, then go to find on your computer, paste the address and then when the programs with that name come up delete them. I found it was an unwanted program that my spyware was not detecting. Once I deleted the program all was fine.