Windows explorer crashes, malware ?

Greetings all,

Windows has recently started displaying DEP error messages and making windows explorer crash and refresh my desktop. This happened whenever I opened a folder containing *.avi files with those little preview things on the left.
This started to occur after I started downloading some *.avi files AND updated windows. (So I don't know if windows started detecting problems thanks to the system update or if the problem was directly linked to the downloading of the avi file.)

Anyway, my first reflex was to scan my computer thoroughly for viruses using Norton Antivirus 2006, and various online scanning websites. Nothing was detected. I also scanned my pc with Ad-Aware, Spybot, and spyware doctor who also failed to detect anything. (Note that these scans were done both in normal and in safe mode.)

After uninstalling Norton I tried out Avast! who finally detected a worm. (I'm sorry but I don't recall it's "name" and can't find it in the Avast! scan log...)
This didn't solve the errors however...

So I then tried deleting the *.avi file I was downloading. This caused the DEP notifications to cease but windows explorer still crashed.
And as a bonus I started getting drwtsn32.exe error messages. This caused the computer to freeze and could only be remedied by closing the avi containing folder through ctrl+alt+del...

I then thought the problem could be coming from corrupted codecs. So I took to uninstalling all my codecs... To no avail.

Furthermore I've noticed that the response speed of my browser (firefox) is significantly slower. (A few seconds to change tabs rather than instantly) Am I still virus infected ??

I've looked around in lots of threads over the internet and cannot seem to find a way to fix this. For the love of God, help me !! :cry

Thanks alot to anyone who can help. :major

 

Hi chaslang, thanks for your reply.

I did go through the "READ & RUN ME FIRST" steps but don't see which logs you are referring to. Are they part of the "special removal" step ? If so, I don't have any logs to attach because other than the worm detected (and removed) by avast! nothing else has been detected and I am still having trouble reading *.avi files.

If this problem can't be caused by malware should I move this thread to another category ? I don't think I've seen any virus removal categories here, do you have any suggestions on which other site I could move my issue to ?

Thanks again.

 

Hi again Chaslang.

Once again I DID go through EVERY step of the "READ & RUN ME FIRST" steps. I might have not made my question clear. What I was trying to know was which one of all the logs were you expecting me to attach ? The "special removal" reference was just a guess and an example. There are so many programs which generate logs in the list that I didn't know which one to attach.
Now I'll make another guess and attach the MGtools log but would rather you'd been more specific...

Anyway thanks for your time, and don't be so condescending I know the blue underlined text are links. hehe =P

Oh and don't get me wrong I'm not angry or anything (People tend to think so over the internet), I understand how annoying it can be to receive so many daily threads that can be solved just by going through the "read & run" steps.

And I'll ask this again just in case: since you think this problem is not caused by malware (which I'm also tempted to believe since all the scans, save for avast!, didn't find a thing), do you have any suggestions as to where I could move my query to ?

Thanks a lot. =)

 

Hi,
Problem solved thanks to another forum.
Thanks anyway. =)