Windows XP: ActivityMonitor periotically tries to install itself
About a week ago, this Windows XP computer started to show a Hardware Installation window, indicating that some software is being installed for some hardware.
The suspicious problem is that no new hardware has been added, and the software appears to be something which monitors computer usage, called: "ActivityMonitor".
Other than the fact that this software was not downloaded or installed by the owner, the error message contains some text which is alarming: "The software you are installing for this hardware: ActivityMonitor has not passed Windows Logo testing to verify it's compatibility with Windows XP."
I'm including a picture of the popup message, below.
After clicking on the "STOP Installation" button, the AVG firewall is reported to be disabled. (yes, AVG is the antivirus on this computer).
Note that this pop-up appears after seeming random lengths of time, and seems to display 8-10 times per day.
What I've done so far is to scrub the computer with multiple antivirus and malware scanners; several minor things were found (mostly complaining about the the Ask toolbar), but no real infections have been found.
I've also used msicuu2 to manually remove some things which were plugged in as an installed thing but were not appearing in the add remove programs list.
I've used regedit to search for activitymonitor and no matches were found.
My question is: how to prevent this thing from periodically popping up...
Thank you in advance for your help.
ActivityMonitorAutoinstall.jpg
The suspicious problem is that no new hardware has been added, and the software appears to be something which monitors computer usage, called: "ActivityMonitor".
Other than the fact that this software was not downloaded or installed by the owner, the error message contains some text which is alarming: "The software you are installing for this hardware: ActivityMonitor has not passed Windows Logo testing to verify it's compatibility with Windows XP."
I'm including a picture of the popup message, below.
After clicking on the "STOP Installation" button, the AVG firewall is reported to be disabled. (yes, AVG is the antivirus on this computer).
Note that this pop-up appears after seeming random lengths of time, and seems to display 8-10 times per day.
What I've done so far is to scrub the computer with multiple antivirus and malware scanners; several minor things were found (mostly complaining about the the Ask toolbar), but no real infections have been found.
I've also used msicuu2 to manually remove some things which were plugged in as an installed thing but were not appearing in the add remove programs list.
I've used regedit to search for activitymonitor and no matches were found.
My question is: how to prevent this thing from periodically popping up...
Thank you in advance for your help.
ActivityMonitorAutoinstall.jpg
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER
The problem wasn't solved, but points were split across the other participants.
ASKER