Its as if sfc /scannow was running, only it wasn't

Discussion in 'Malware Help - MG (A Specialist Will Reply)' started by hankyknot, Feb 29, 2008.

  1. hankyknot

    hankyknot Corporal

    Had a bunch of phone calls and emails in teh last 12 hours from people asking me why their PC is asking for the XP CD totally out of the blue.

    Its almost as if sfc /scannow was running and found a file that needed fixing, only sfc wasn't running.

    Could this be a windows update causing the poroblem or something more malicious?

    Virus scans are coming up clean, but its only one program right?
     
  2. chaslang

    chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

    There can be many reasons for a PC to ask for a CD. Are you sure it is asking for the Windows XP CD? Many times it is the Office CD that is requested when an application of Office gets corrupted or if the Windows Installed gets messed up.

    If the Dllcache folder, or part of it, has become corrupted for some reason then may be prompted for the XP CD.

    It is possible that this is a sign of an infection as lately there have been quite a few problems that have been replacing protected Windows OS files with malware versions. Virus scans coming up clean does not always mean a PC is clean. Most virus scanners miss tons of current day problems which is why this forum exists.

    Does the problem keep happening of the same PC? Has anyone actually tried running sfc and put the CD in to see if the problem goes away.
     
  3. hankyknot

    hankyknot Corporal

    Its something that only started happening yesterday and so far has happened on half a dozen PC's in half a dozen different locations. Put the disk in and teh message goes away.

    The alarm bells rang because sfc hadn't been run at the time and I'd never come across a Windows system that checked such things without user assistance.

    Also the fact that that today is a "special" day made me suspicious. Could Microsoft be making me paranoid?

    And you're right theres no such thing as perfect virus protection, for my mind its a balance of protection, performance and useability. I would be interested to find out what the forums thoughts are on business anti-virus options. Theres a lot of posts about home stuff but what about business users? I'd rather here real world stories than making my decision based on the results of the size of the marketing budget.
     
  4. chaslang

    chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

    Then I would not worry about it. These PC's may not have copy and i386 folder to the hard disk which contains a backup of all the files from the i386 folder on the Windows CD. Thus something that was done in common on these PCs may have caused this to happen. Since you imply these are company PCs, they all could have been missing or needed the same thing.

    All companies have different rules and regulations about what may be installed on company own equipment. They can be fussy about what will be used in their own private network. Most companies will choose to install software from the larger companies like McAfee or Norton. Why they choose any particular program could be based on the cost of corporate voluming licensing fees, how easy it is to do volume automatic downloading and updating of new versions, and the fact that a program is well know and has been around for a long time. The kind of protection a company requires is still the same as what is covered in this How to Protect yourself from malware! But which programs they may chose to use will more than likely be much different and will not be the free tools.
     

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