Recently I have seen a lot of Windows clients infected with spyware, especially when Internet Explorer is set as the default browser with Active X enabled. I have been using Spybot Search & Destroy to clean up the machines with pretty good success, but there is only limited support for continued protection. Spybot has an immunization feature, but no resident background scanning like the antivirus apps do. Setting Firefox as the default browser helps too, but some users are stubborn and insist on using Internet Explorer.

Kiltak just posted that Shavlik NetChkâ„¢ Spyware is now free for one year for up to 50 machines. It looks like it has some neat features, such as scanning the network for spyware without requiring agents on each system. We have more than 50 machines, but if NetChkâ„¢ tests out well, maybe we can negotiate a good deal.