Please no comments about macs – not going to help me here.

Seem to have a virus, Windows Explorer (no, not IE8) keeps crashing when opened..i have done some searching, and now completed several scans and log files have been posted on a help forum (im trying everything here).

But as this forum is in the states (thus timezones not helping), i’d like to ask the genius of STW for any tips…what can i try to find the blighter?

got avast and spy-bot.

now tried: superantispyware, malwarebytes anti malware, cc cleaner, and then done a hijack this log for the guy..

any other things i can try?

ta very much!

Run combofix im safe mode, dr web cureit is also good.

if it were me I’d get IE8 on there and see what happens…

is firefox/chrome/safari all ok?

using IE8

ITS NOT THE BROWSER!!!

Its the Windows Explorer

well you mentioned IE8 first….

I had windows explorer trouble when I had a fecked hard drive…
c
can you unplug any externalhard drives/internal cd/usb/dvd/etc drives and try again. I don’t think it’s a virus sound smore liek the File Allocation table somewhere is b*ggered.

Its possibly not a virus.

Try system restore to undo any recent changes.

Have you tried the simple stuff like running CHKDSK? It could be something as simple as a corrupt directory.

system restore…hhmmm i think when we loaded xp on this year we then created a restore point.. how do you check that again – the date of the last one i mean..

with that you lose the recent changes like program addons etc? or files?

Try this worked for me many moons ago.

Have the XP CD in the drive and then go to start/Run and enter the
following line….
(Note this is all one line…may wrap when posted here)
If it does wrap….there is a space between 132 and %windir%

rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132
%windir%\inf\ie.inf

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/getstarted/ballew_03may19.mspx

I don’t use system restore anymore but when I used to I’d usually have restore points every 3-4 days and I had never changed the settings or created manual restore points so I’m guessing you should have some fairly recent restore points. You wont (shouldn’t) lose files in my documents and such, but you might lose recent changes to programs, recent updates or recently installed programs.

If you follow the instructions above it will tell you the date of the last restore point before committing to the restore

ok so i couldnt use a restore point – it wouldnt let me..

tried a chkdsk and it seemed to at first have a v bad reaction… now just back to doing the same old problem..

any tips?

sounds like you have directory or file allocation table issues and not a virus.

if it were me and I didn’t have a backup I’d be talking to someone who can take over from here on in and hope I didn;t lose too much of my data.

If you don;’t have any data to worry about then reformat the hard drive (or better still get a new one), run lots of chkdsks on it and reinstall everything – you’ll get rid of the virus as well if you still have any concerns…

tried a chkdsk and it seemed to at first have a v bad reaction

What sort of bad reaction?

What were the results from ChkDsk? (see Viewing ChkDsk Results)

Definitely sounds like your disk rather than a virus.

reaction was freezing, v slow and just went to 99% on the cpu.

i’d have to run the chkdsk when i get home.

so, a re-install of xp wouldnt help?

i have a friend here who is in IT..he’s going to look at it..

cheers tho!