Problem with installing Malware-removal apps

Hi,

I'm having a problem on W2K with some kind of malware that seems to target the window manager in some way. The symptons are that some programs (putty, realplayer, reflection etc) crash with an empty "warning prompt" with the caption "Program error" and it seems to happen when the window manager is involved.
Anyway, I've tried to set things straight by following your nice step-by-step guides to how to search for malware but my problem is that the same problem is keeping me from installing the recommended software.
They get to the license agreement dialogue and then the Program error prompt appears and the installation crashes. I've managed to install HiJackThis though.
As I haven't been able to find anything else out there that seems to adress this problem I thought it best to go to the finest on malware
This link describes some of the same behavior though but the files mentioned in the thread are not present on my computer:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=f6af982a805692bde432bf5c7e777452&topic=22893.msg189282

Many thanks in advance!
BR
Marianne

 

Hi,

Sorry for being a bit vague.
The software I haven't been able to install is CCleaner.
What happens is (like described in the link that I included in my last post) that I get as far as accepting the license agreement and then it crashes in the same way as many other programs (described below).

I can run GetRunKey. ShowNew creates the newfiles.txt but it is almost empty and the program does not pop up a notepad window after execution as GetRunKey did.
I have also run our company Symantec virus scan which came up empty.
I will try and follow as many as the steps after CCleaner in the READ & RUN ME FIRST section now before I post again.

The malware problem I am experiencing is that some programs (like the ones mentioned in my last post) will not start or will not operate correctly. They crash with an empty windows "warning prompt", by empty I mean that the prompt contains no text. The prompt has the caption "Program error" and a yellow warning triangle is present inside it.
The programs crash at different places in the execution. Putty, for instance, crash when trying to do anything inside the application.
Real player crash when trying to start playing anything.
Reflection X crash when I try to edit the window manager settings. Firefox crash when trying to invoke some plugins related to graphics, not sure which ones I'm afraid.
The computer I am using is sitting behind company firewall and anti-virus protection.
I work with computers and programming daily so if you want to ask "technical" questions feel free.

BR
Marianne

 

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time even though I have no scan logs.
I was able to run the Panda online scan yesterday and it found a "haxdoor" trojan which it claimed to clean out which was nice. My main problem persists though but I was not able to run any more scans as I turned the computer into IT-support at work. I haven't done this before since their standard response to *any* problem is a re-installation after an arbitrary time attempting to look into the problem
They suspected memory problems like you mentioned but were not able to sort it out so now they're gonna re-install it..
Thanks for you help anyway, I'll get back if I have any further problems after this since a re-installation seems like a bad cure for potentiall bad hardware..

BR
Marianne