Windows error on shutdown/reboot

Odd one that I've actually managed to reproduce, albiet irregularly.

Begin a shutdown sequence from the Start Menu, but instead of shutting off the system restarts. Cancel through Scandisk, get through the Windows login to take it back down; in the middle of loading, it throws an error in vsmonapi.dll, then one in explorer.exe, and hangs with no icons or menu bar.

The only thing I've done recently is updating ZoneAlarm to v6.0.667, and I'm thinking about ripping it out and reverting it to see if that's the cause.

Any thoughts, gentlemen?

 

please do a search on your system for that file and post back the directory in which it is located.

 

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM, and it's vsmonapi.dll, not vscom. Apologies; can't seem to edit my prior post.

 

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.gunsan.html

You've been buggered.

READ ME FIRST : Basic Spyware, Trojan And Virus Removal

 

Sounds about right with the symptoms; doing an update and run of AVG as we speak.

Can't read my own logfiles, though: is was vsmon.exe in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ZONELABS.

 

O...kay. Hate to respond to my own post, but...

Don't know if that's what I've got. AVG came up clean.

 

One more time - did a little research, and found out that the problem isn't a spyware issue; might this be moved back to general software?

Seems the latest version of ZoneAlarm (v6.0.667.000) can create a serious memory leak under the right circumstance that causes the hang-and-restart behaviour I encountered. There's quite a few threads on the subject in their support forum here.

The workaround I've found that seems viable is to kill the autoupdate, AV monitoring, and email monitoring functions.