Virus or major windows issue?

Lleliwyn · Oct 1, 2009

On Monday after tooling around on the web (Facebook, Yahoo, etc.) I closed the browser and tried to play a game on my computer. The program didn't respond, my computer froze, and i couldn't get task manager open to restart it. Thinking it just needed a restart to perk it up, i turned it off and back on. When it finally got back to desktop after several false starts, my task bar had changed from its bubbled windows XP appearance to the gray original, the computer was unbelievably slow (think one click takes 5-10 minutes to show on the screen), and I received two errors. The first was an error for "Generic Host Process for Win32 services" I closed it and started to run an antivirus scan. Then came the "DCOM Server process launcher service" error, with a countdown. Since then I've run several scans which found nothing till I happened upon your forums. I have done all the steps to clean up and check my computer as stated in the sticky post.

On the final five programs:
I was not able to run Super Anti-spyware: I was given the error "The windows installer service could not be accessed."

Rootrepeal froze every time (not responding) I tried to use it.

I'm not sure if this is important, but Combofix did not restore the desktop at the end, and I entered "explorer.exe" to restore it.

The only scanner to date that has found anything wrong with my computer was Malwarebytes' Anti-malware.

Thank you!

chaslang · Oct 6, 2009

Welcome to Major Geeks!

Why are you running this PC with no protection other than the fairly ineffective Ad-Watch?

I'm not sure your problem is malware. Based on what you said about not being able to install SAS and what I see in your logs, you may have some Windows Services that are no running.

Click Start, Run, and enter services.msc and click OK. This will bringup the Services form. Scroll down to exactly the below service name:

Windows Management Instrumentation

and double click on it. Make sure the Service status: shows as Started. Also make sure the Startup type: shows as Automatic. Let me know what you find. I have a feeling this service may not be running since the sysinfo.txt log in the MGlogs.zip file shows Can't Collect Information.

Also check the Windows Installer service and make sure it is set to Startup type: Manual and Service status: Stopped.

Now run C:\MGtools\analyse.exe by double clicking on it (Note: if using Vista, don't double click, use right click and select Run As Administrator). This is really HijackThis (select Do a system scan only) and select the following lines but DO NOT CLICK FIX until you exit all browser sessions including the one you are reading in right now:

R3 - URLSearchHook: Yahoo! Toolbar - {EF99BD32-C1FB-11D2-892F-0090271D4F88} - (no file)
O2 - BHO: &Yahoo! Toolbar Helper - {02478D38-C3F9-4efb-9B51-7695ECA05670} - (no file)
O3 - Toolbar: Yahoo! Toolbar - {EF99BD32-C1FB-11D2-892F-0090271D4F88} - (no file)

After clicking Fix, exit HJT.

Now we need to use ComboFix

Make sure that combofix.exe that you downloaded while doing the READ & RUN ME is on your Desktop but Do not run it!

If it is not on your Desktop, the below will not work.

Also make sure you have shut down all protection software (antivirus, antispyware...etc) or they may get in the way of allowing ComboFix to run properly.

If ComboFix tells you it has expired or need to be updated to a new version, make sure you allow it to update.

Open Notepad and copy/paste the text in the below quote box into it:

KILLALL::

Driver::
gAGP440p

File::
c:\docume~1\Ron\LOCALS~1\Temp\gAGP440p.sys
Click to expand...

Save the above as CFscript.txt and make sure you save it to the same location (should be on your Desktop) as ComboFix.exe

At this point, you MUST EXIT ALL BROWSERS NOW before continuing!

You should have both the ComboFix.exe and CFScript.txt icons on your Desktop.

Now use your mouse to drag CFscript.txt on top of ComboFix.exe

Follow the prompts.

When it finishes, a log will be produced named c:\combofix.txt

I will ask for this log below

Note:

Do not mouseclick combofix's window while it is running. That may cause it to stall.

Now run Ccleaner. Only use the Run Cleaner button. Do not run anything else on any other forms.

Now run the C:\MGtools\GetLogs.bat file by double clicking on it (Note: if using Vista, don't double click, use right click and select Run As Administrator).

Then attach the below logs:

C:\ComboFix.txt

C:\MGlogs.zip

Make sure you tell me how things are working now!

Lleliwyn · Oct 6, 2009

Prior to your reply reply, I was still trying to fix my computer; in the past, my computer has sometimes been fixed by "Updating" windows from the original windows XP disk. I couldn't do this because the version of windows was too new, so I uninstalled Service pack 3 and updated. Sometime in that process, the computer became much faster than it was. When I deleted Ad-Aware, it went even faster. I have yet to reinstall service pack 3 however.

I checked the settings that you asked for after all this and they had the proper listing. The system is still experiencing minute amounts of lag, (words not appearing until a few seconds after I type them) but I'm not having nearly the issue I did before- should I just let it be at this point?

Is this the correct MGtools file attached, or did you need all of them? It would not let me post the zip file because "it was already posted in the thread"

Lleliwyn · Oct 8, 2009

I'm gonna call this one fixed- i've updated some drivers that reverted back when i used the Windows CD. I think the network adapter in particular was causing the weird mini-lags. Thank you for all your help, the cleaning procedures certainly did my computer a world of good!

chaslang · Oct 13, 2009

You're welcome. Glad to hear you got it worked out.

If you are not having any other malware problems, it is time to do our final steps:

We recommend you keep SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for scanning/removal of malware. Unless you purchase them, they provide no protection. They do not use any significant amount of resources ( except a little disk space ) until you run a scan.

If we had you use ComboFix, uninstall ComboFix (This uninstall will only work as written if you installed ComboFix on your Desktop like we requested.)

Click START then RUN and enter the below into the run box and then click OK. Note the quotes are required

"%userprofile%\Desktop\combofix" /u

Notes: The space between the combofix" and the /u, it must be there.

This will uninstall ComboFix and also reset hidden files and folders settings back to Windows defaults.

Any other miscellaneous tools we may have had you install or download can be uninstalled and deleted.

If running Vista, it is time to make sure you have reenabled UAC by double clicking on the C:\MGtools\enableUAC.reg file and allowing it to be added to the registry.

Go to add/remove programs and uninstall HijackThis.

Goto the C:\MGtools folder and find the MGclean.bat file. Double click on this file to run this cleanup program that will remove files and folders related to MGtools and some other items from our cleaning procedures.

After doing the above, you should work thru the below link:

How to Protect yourself from malware!

Log in or Sign up

Virus or major windows issue?

Lleliwyn Private E-2

Attached Files:

mbam-log-2009-09-29 (15-47-00).txt

MGlogs.zip

ComboFix.txt

chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

Lleliwyn Private E-2

Attached Files:

ComboFix.txt

hijackthis.log

Lleliwyn Private E-2

chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member