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Need some help guys. Task Manager, msconfig.msc, and regedit.exe keep closing before I can do anything

E

Edge17

Senior member
Basically, i think i have a virus, and i'm scanning rightnow. Every time I open regedit, msconfig, or the task manager in WinXP, it closes within a second or two before i can do anything. Has anyone had a similar experience, or know what the problem/virus might be?

Basically, I was sitting here minding my own business, when all of a sudden a small window pops up and says that Windows will shut down in 60 seconds, and it has a countdown timer on it. I've never seen anything like it in my experience with Windows, so I'm guessing its a virus.

In the past Norton hasn't exactly been the best in picking up virsuses, so I don't really have a whole lot of faith that it'll pick anything up....

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Edge
 
i have this problem on my parents windows 98 se... cant do msconfig and it was before and after a format and new installation because of a problem their system was having... i'm format happy... they didnt have anything important on there that couldnt be moved with the zip disks anyways... but i'm with ya on this one.. diff OS... same problem (just with msconfig) and it didnt have the "shut down" box you described

but i will say that norton has always been there for my computer... except that one time i didnt update it for about a month... woops 😀
 
My cousin had a similar problem (without the countdown) that I could not, for the life of me, get rid of. 3 different virus scanners would not detect it, from both Windows and from DOS. Spybot and AdAware didn't pick up anything either.

Maybe it's so new that no one has it in their database yet?
 
Holy crap! You have the EXACT same problem as I do! It's driving me insane! Plus my hard drive space is plummeting for absolutely no reaosn..
 
Originally posted by: Edge17Basically, I was sitting here minding my own business, when all of a sudden a small window pops up and says that Windows will shut down in 60 seconds, and it has a countdown timer on it. I've never seen anything like it in my experience with Windows, so I'm guessing its a virus.
Click to expand...

Someone remotely executed the shutdown command and god knows what else. I'd definitely do a full scan on your system once you get things back up. Good luck getting it patched before the next attack.
 
Well, I figured out what the problem is, sort of. Got some helpful info in this thread http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/r1057415989

Basically, a process is running that is a variation of a normal process. I found msconfig32.exe to be running, which happened to be the process causing me problems. So after I close it, everything goes back to the way it should be. I deleted all instances of that file on my computer, and all registry keys containing the file name. However, every time I restart the computer, it comes back and the problem starts over. This is starting to get frustrating.
 
I think you can set permissions in XP on what files are allowed to run. Put an exclusion on msconfig32.exe if you can. You could also be really ghetto and add a line to the windows startup to delete all files named msconfig32.exe on your system.

I think until you get it fixed you need to disconnect the computer from the net. After you download that security patch of course.
 
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