Then download and run combofix
and then malwarebytes
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Computer infected by virus? Windows installer problem?
I need some help pretty desperately now. I've been trying to fix some computer problems and I'm usually fairly competent at it but now I'm close to tears and facing reformatting my laptop- something I just don't want to do.
I don't know the true source of the problem. In the wee early morning hours of January 14th, I was running an advanced search in Outlook Express of my Inbox. I do have a great deal of saved messages (1.8 GB- though I didn't realize it was that large then). My computer crashed during the search and I just turned it off for the night. The next morning (still the 14th), I rebooted the laptop and opened Outlook Express and I had lost all my e-mails from July 18th, 2007 to the present day. I rebooted a couple of times just thinking it might have been a hiccup, but it wasn't.
I have OfficeRecovery and ran Recovery for Outlook Express and while it did seem to recover all my messages, it didn't recover any attachments. It took a bit of time as well since my laptop is close to 5 years old: 512 MB RAM, 80 GB hard drive with only 6 GB of free space (now after I've deleted some things). My husband has Advanced Outlook Express Repair on his computer so I copied my inbox.dbx to his computer and used that to restore my e-mails.
Advanced Outlook Express Repair though was running very slowly and using just about all of his system's CPUs. It had been running for 12 hours and was only at 3% progress. Worrying about tying up his work computer or about him accidentally closing the program. I started searching for another e-mail recovery program and found ScanDBX. I have to admit that I didn't want to spend the $38 for the software (my husband's a casualty of the economy and it's pretty tight for us right now) so I went looking for a pirated copy. Looks like I learned my lesson, I found one and when I followed the directions I couldn't run the .exe file. I then found a second one but instead of ScanDBX, some Blackbox Data Recovery program opened up. I was frozen with fear and dread, quickly closed it and uninstalled all the files. This was the evening of the 15th. All this time, I hadn't opened Outlook Express and didn't use my computer for anything else as it's primarily used for e-mail.
Yesterday, I wanted to run a virus scan on the whole system since I was very nervous about the two questionable programs/sources and saw that Norton wasn't running. Then I recalled that with all the reboots I'd done over the previous days, they were all relatively fast, compared with all the time they usually take. While I did notice at the time that the reboots were fast, it didn't dawn on my to wonder why.
The error I was getting with Norton is that C:/........../ccApp.exe is not a valid Win 32 application. Doing a quick Google search, it seemed the answer was an uninstall/reinstall. I went to Add/Remove Programs and tried to uninstall it- no go. It starts and seems to get to the end but then nothing happens. I let it try the uninstall overnight last night but all I had to show for it this morning was a warm laptop. I've downloaded the Norton Uninstaller and that starts to run and then fails- I don't recall if there's and error or if it hangs up as well. I've tried to reboot the computer in safe mode, safe mode with networking and safe mode with command prompts but all I get is an error saying that Windows failed to load correctly. Windows will load normally though. I have Windows XP SP2 (I think SP2 anyway).
I then downloaded Kaspersky's trial but I can't install that since Norton's still on my system. I tried to manually uninstall Norton, but that didn't work. I then downloaded AVG free. That begins to install and also fails, same with Avira's Free Antivirus software. I then tried Trend Micro Housecall and Symantec Security Check but both of these just hang up as well.
I remember that Norton's uninstall was hanging up on a .msi file. I also noticed that one of the others that I tried had a .msi error. I did go to system.msc and started windows installer and changed it from manual to automatic but that doesn't seem to have helped.
So the bottom line is, I don't know what caused the problem I'm having, the initial crash while doing the Outlook Express search or something bad that I installed on my computer while trying to save $38. Please help, if not for me, then for my husband and kids who have had to suffer along with me these last few days!
-Janice
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Answers
ok try Windows Installer CleanUp Utility to uninstall.
after you install this start it up and look for the norton reference
Also try Stinger http://vil.nai.com/vil/sti
I have rebooted after almost every failed uninstall attempt just in the hope it actually did work (or probably more in hope that everything was miraculuously fixed). I haven't yet- my computer is a bit slow.
Should I still download Combofix or go straight to the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility and/or Stinger?
-Janice
Thanks.
I'm at the System Configuration Utility now and while I've deselected all that were checked, it still leaves "Use Original BOOT.INI" selected. Is this correct to proceed with or should I choose one of the other options (Normal Startup or Diagnostic Startup)?
Lastly, seeing one of the buttons reminded me that I did try to do a System Restore to an earlier date a few times and that didn't work either. The error that I got was that it couldn't be restored because there were no changes to the system.
-Janice
Another recommended thing to do is download and run hijackthis and post the results to this analyzer which will tell which options to select to fix.
Thanks again- I really appreciate the help- and on a Saturday night depending on where you are. Just bear with me as both my computer and DSL aren't the fastest out there!
Windows is loading now, but I didn't see where to deselect the system restore point so just went ahead with the ORIGINAL BOOT.INI.
-Janice
Should I do that and reboot again?
Also, after the selective reboot, I don't have access to the internet. So I'm downloading the programs to a flash drive and installing them that way. Are there any problems doing it this route or do I need to have internet access restored with a "normal" reboot?
-Janice
Okay, I've got the rebooting done but when I try to run the Windows Installer (msicuu2.exe) I get an error:
"The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed. This can occur if you are running Windows in safe mode, or if the Windows Installer is not correctly installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance."
What's my next step, a normal reboot or is this linked to the problems I've been having with the AV installs?
-Janice
lets update your windows installer http://www.microsoft.com/d
If that doesnt work lets do this:
How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
The only thing you lose with this is you'll have to re-update(windows update)
try to start>>run>>sfc /scannow and read here:
http://ask-leo.com/
It's still hanging up on the "Processing MSI's by Product Code".
My backup is taking quite a bit of time and I don't know how much longer it will take (it keeps jumping from 132 minutes remaining to 5 minutes remaining to 21 minutes remaining so it's anyone's guess I suppose). Do you want to pick this up tomorrow? What's my next step? I haven't tried the Combofix, Malwarebytes, Stinger or Hijackthis- not that I even know what any of them do!
-Janice
>> I haven't tried the Combofix, Malwarebytes, Stinger or Hijackthis- not that I even know what any of them do!
The first three are all small anti-virus packages designed to look for the most common viruses and trojans. The last one looks at what applications/services are running on your computer. You submit the HiJack report here for experts to look at and work out if they can identify the bad stuff.
I was just discussing that with my husband. It might be a feasible option. The worst thing I'd have to reinstall would be AutoCAD (for work). I'm willing to try some other options first though. I'll do Hijackthis next if that's the most useful (after my backup completes of course). I won't be able to post that until the morning.
-Janice
yup, http://www.experts-exchang
li
Okay, I'm backed up. I found the I386 file on my computer but haven't done the XP Repair yet. I'm trying to do Combofix but can't. I have it on my flash drive and any time I try to run it, drag-and-drop or just right-click to copy, it hangs up and I can't do anything. Even Windows Task Manager doesn't seem to end the process so I reboot.
I try to run Malwarebytes next, then Stinger.
-Janice
Ok then lets use http://www.ubcd4win.com/
okay, now I'm confused! I've downloaded and installed UBCD4win to my husband's computer. It goes through a series of checks (which were all fine) and then brought me to the dialog box where I create the CD. It asks for the source path- (path to Windows installation files) but this is on my husband's computer and he has Vista, while mine (the one with the problems) is running XP.
I moved the UBCD4win.exe to my flash drive and then ran it from there to install it on my computer but it fails. I get the following error:
"The integrity check has failed and UBCD4Win cannot be built...
"Since the MD5 has of the download has not been verified it makes it difficult to determine exactly why the integrity check has failed so if you're connected to the internet then it's strongly recommended that you have the MD5 hash of the original download verified for you now. Do it?
"After this dialog box is closed you'll see a list of files that failed the integrity check."
When I installed it on my husband's laptop, the integrity check and MD5 hash were all good. Here is the list of files it generated:
oem1\autorun\autorun.inf, 3DF3CC639563AFB482FB3340AE
plugin\AntiSpyware\hijackt
plugin\AntiSpyware\Spybot\
plugin\AntiSpyware\Spybot\
plugin\AntiSpyware\Spybot\
plugin\AntiSpyware\Spybot\
plugin\AntiSpyware\SUPERAn
plugin\Applications\FireFo
Seeing this list makes me suspect a virus as I don't what some of these programs are. I don't know what blindman.exe is and I know of I haven't installed anything along the lines of SUPERAntiSpyware.exe (unless that a file that Spybot, Norton or Windows uses). I'm pretty sure I haven't installed Hijackthis on my computer ever before. It's not listed under my Program Files. Just to confirm this, I installed Hijackthis and sure enough, it installed to Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis, which definitely wasn't there before. Trying to run HijackThis, I get the error, "C:\...........HijackThis.
-Janice
You install UBCD4win.exe on the computer you downloaded it on (you dont put the exe on flash drive) After installed you run it and it will locate the files it needs(on your hard drive) to build a cd. You can either have it build an iso file that you can burn later or have it automatically burn it for you. The md5 hash failed because it needs to connect to internet to verify.
Now I am confused, as this is what I did try already. I downloaded UBCD4win.exe to my husband's computer and extracted it there. I ran the install on my husband's computer but since it's looking for the path to the Windows Installation files which I know I can't pull from my husband's computer so I moved the UBCD4win.exe file to my flash drive. I installed UBCD4win to my computer from my flash drive but since it's not connected to the internet, I couldn't run the HD5 hash. Going through the install steps, I got the above error list of files.
So, I went into msconfig and selected for my computer to boot with "Normal Startup" instead of the selective one. It looks like the majority of my programs are back up and running that weren't with previous reboots (with the normal startup). I'm tempted to try the Norton Uninstaller again but don't want to mess anything up more. I've moved UBCD4win.exe off the flash drive onto my desktop and am installing it to new folder. Since I'm connected to the internet now, it was able to do the HD5 hash check, hopefully that does the trick. It's running through and verifying files now, it's at 7% and not going very fast.
-Janice
I did find the I386 folder (with some 5,000 files and the winnt.exe and winnt32.exe).
My husband's computer has Vista installed. I don't know if he has a restore disk or not. Mine is a VAIO that didn't come with a restore disk, but has some kind of restore written into it. I know that if I run that, it will wipe out all my files.
I'm pretty persistent- can't you tell?!
-Janice
It failed a second time. Now I have this error:
"The MD5 hash of your download seems to be ok but the integrity check has failed. This usually means that an anti-virus or some other program is silently deleting files that it detects as riskware. It's strongly recommended that you extract and build UBCD4Win in safe mode when this happens.
"You'll see a list of files that were affected after you close this dialog box."
The list of files is the same ones that it listed before and I posted above.
-Janice
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by: dstewartjrPosted on 2009-01-17 at 18:52:23ID: 23403469
first download and run the norton uninstaller utility
http://service1.sym