DimndDan
Topic Starter
I have recently recovered (I think) from a rash of virus/trojans/malware that got on my computer mid-last week that I have been fighting to eliminate ever since. Foolishly, I left myself unprotected to run a performance test on some proprietary software, but did not disconnect from the internet. While my protection was turned off, my son came in and used my business computer for only 10 minutes not knowing I had walked away from the computer with it still unprotected and bam, I got hit with dozens of malicious stuff. I could almost shoot myself. Anyway, in the process of downloading additional scanners, protection, registry cleaners and etc. I seem to have either downloaded something or damaged registry entries or something, I really don't know what, but I've done something to cause several error messages to occur. The error message presently on my screen is: "Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry …". I get this error almost any time after bootup and then I open a program or Internet Explorer.
Additionally, I need to update some software with a new build number version and when I run the .exe file that is supposed to run InstallShield, I get an error: "InstallShield, 1607: Unable to install InstallShield Scripting Runtime." which before all of the above happened, I've never had. I was getting a Data Execution Prevention (DEP) error until I finally, I think, eliminated the Spyware.Look2Me malware using l2mfix. I've only been on the computer a few minutes now since I think I have eliminated the last malware and the DEP message hasn't come up yet. It too was coming up as soon as I was opening a new process. It has not reared its ugly head, as yet, however.
Another unusual process that seems to run and I'm pretty sure it wasn't running prior to the malware episodes is: UserFaultCheck %systemroot%\system32\dumprep 0 -u. When I still had some of the malware, my firewall would ask me if i wanted this to execute or not. At the time, I thought it might be related to the DEP error I was getting and so I eventually said, "Yes". Now it loads at startup. What is this and does it need to run. Also, another process starts up: rundll32.exe. At one point, 3 of these were running at startup. I don't remember these being in my process list at all before I got the malwares. I read up on rundll32.exe and understand that it is a Microsoft process, but why do I need 3 of them to run at startup. This may have been related to the malware situation, I suppose. I just checked my process list and it is not in it this time. Also, I don't see it this time in HighjackThis log file either, so this may no longer be an issue.
Can you please help with this Windows Explorer and InstallShield error? Thank you very much for your time and consideration of these issues. My HighJackThis header lines are shown below.
Logfile of HijackThis v1.99.1
Scan saved at 9:17:44 PM, on 7/27/2005
Platform: Windows XP SP2 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP2 (6.00.2900.2180)
