Malware Removal Tools not Opening

Discussion in 'Malware Help (A Specialist Will Reply)' started by Geolbob, Jan 8, 2014.

  1. Geolbob

    Geolbob Private E-2

    Hello Geek Saviors

    Am trying to run the Malware Removal Tools for my Acer 2012 Laptop, Windows 7, IE 11, AVG antivirus, Comodo Firewall. Have downloaded the Tools to desktop and followed the Win 7 malware removal directions. Have following problems despite lowering Internet security settings, trying with Comodo Firewall disabled (also Comodo in safe mode) with all tools software entered as safe applications, running in Windows Normal Ops:
    1 - Defogger, after clicking DISABLE and YES get immediate red X message "Unable to Create Log"
    2 - RogueKiller, right click "run as admin", depending on Comodo settings noted above variably got Alert Triangle "Software is Not Available" or once setup opened and started abruptly disappeared with message "Download Manager has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will Close and notify you if a solution is available". Tried renaming to "RK.exe" with same result.
    3 - Malwarebytes - tried after RogueKiller failure, right click "run as admin", and got exact same response as for RogueKiller.

    Did not try other tools. Any idea what I can do to get tools to run? Have not tried computer Safe Mode - would this help?
    Thanks for any suggestions and guidance.
     
  2. TimW

    TimW MajorGeeks Administrator - Jedi Malware Expert Staff Member

    Yes, you can try safe mode, but be sure to first disable your AV software.
     
  3. chaslang

    chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

    Question: Are you running Disk Emulation software? If not then you do not need to run defogger. Disk Emulation software is not a normal setup, it would be special configuration that you setup and you should know whether you are doing that or not. This is software like Daemon Tools ( http://www.daemon-tools.cc/downloads ) and Alcohol 120 ( http://www.alcohol-soft.com/ )
     
  4. Geolbob

    Geolbob Private E-2

    Thanks Tim and Chaslang for the suggestions. I will try Malwarebytes and RogueKiller in Safe Mode and see if they will run. I need to check and see if any Disk Emulation software is installed (not to my knowledge). I was able to successfully run TDS Killer, Hitman Pro, and MG Tools - those logs are attached. Checking with my IT guy at work, looks like something changed my profile and possibly IE 11 (which was installed by MS on 12/3 and has worked OK until last night). Running AVG antivirus, SuperAntispyware, and Spybot scans found nothing.
     

    Attached Files:

  5. chaslang

    chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

    This is a company owned PC?

    Your profile is totally messed up. Not a malware problem but rather a Windows problem. Many of your enviroment variables are not being setup the way they should be for your user account. They are being setup like a system level account. This is not a problem we can address in the Malware Forum. It may be best for you to create a new user account and transfer any needed info from the old account to the new. Talk to your IT person.

    Here are some of the environment variables that I'm referring to and what is wrong.

    APPDATA - Completely missing
    HOMEDRIVE - Completely missing
    HOMEPATH - Completely missing
    LOCALAPPDATA - Completely missing
    TEMP - not setup to what would be expect for a normal user account
    • Set to C:\Windows\system32\config\SYSTEM~1\AppData\Local\Temp
    • Instead of C:\Users\Rmlann\AppData\Local\Temp
    TMP - not setup to what would be expect for a normal user account
    • Set to C:\Windows\system32\config\SYSTEM~1\AppData\Local\Temp
    • Instead of C:\Users\Rmlann\AppData\Local\Temp
    USERNAME=SYSTEM should be Rmlann
    USERPROFILE - not setup for your user account
    • Set to C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile
    • Instead of C:\Users\Rmlann
    This may explain some of the problems you are having. I can see in the MGtools logs that it is messing up its ability report information correct because the environment values that are relied upon are missing or incorrectly set.


    What problems actually brought you here to the Malware Forum anyway.
     
  6. Geolbob

    Geolbob Private E-2

    Hi Chaslang

    Thanks for reviewing the info and log files, and identifying the likely problems. This is my personal laptop, not company. I took it in to work so I would have an online ability to do the malware checks with the latest tools. I suspected there was malware because overnight the desktop had changed, some icons were missing, IE was not working, and all favorites had disappeared from IE. I had made no changes myself to the laptop, so suspected I had "caught something" in my browsing. I apologize for thinking this was a malware issue, but I'm not savvy enough to recognize otherwise. I do greatly appreciate the help and the work that you all do, so thanks again.
    Bob
     
  7. chaslang

    chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

    You're welcome.
    All of that happened because of the user environment settings I mentioned below.
     

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