Anyoen recognize these symptoms?

[Spiegel]

OK, here we go again with another problem from the GFs computer. (Personally, I think she gets all of these from her mom's reckless surfing, but eh...)

Anyway, here's the deal. Randomly a window will pop up, but it's nothing. It shows up in the taskbar as a normal litlle window-bar-icon thingy, but with no name. The icon on the left is the window icon...you know the white rectangle with the blue top.

This has been happening for a while now, and she's been trying to get a screen saver to work, but when the window pops up, the PC thinks it's a process and ends the SS, I think (this just occurred to me yesterday).

AVG detects no viruses, Ad-aware SE and Spybot S&D both either detect no spyware, or the usual 10 or so problems that always seem to weasel their way in.

Any ideas or suggestions? I'll reformat if you guys think it's necessary, but I don't really want to...she'll probably have a fit.
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[Google]

[Ham_fisT]

Does the Icon thing show up as an aplication in task manager?
if it does, right click on it in task man, and select "go to process", at least you may get an idea of what it is.

also try running the anti-virus/spyware apps in safe mode.
download and run CWShredder
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Yeah....... ok

[fussnfeathers]

QFE ^^^

It's an adware program, but it's one that's set itself as a "necessary process" and won't let anything delete it. Safe Mode that puppy, you'll find it.

Just for giggles and grins, pull up the task manager and post the running processes here......I think I know which one it is, but I'd have to see the filenames to remember.......
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Big enough to scare you

[Josh]

Another thought....run "msconfig" from the start menu, and check out whats running on startup. Check for any dodgey names, particularly pay attention to anything involoving "GAIN" in it.
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»4 RS«»1Ж «»1 DENE«»1 FREAKIN LAME OH«»1 MONEY MONEY«
(-)

[Spiegel]

I can't catch it in task manager, 'cause the "blank program" that shows in the task bar is there for <1/2 a second. No time to go check on it.

I'll try safemode tomorrow...here's the list of running processes...I suck at life and dunno how to copy/paste them, and I'm too lazy to type so pics for you!


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[fussnfeathers]

Everything looks ok there......see what safe mode gets you.
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Big enough to scare you

[Spiegel]

Well...****. Safe mode did nothing, I booted there and ran AVG, ad-aware, and Spybot S&D, S&D found 1 thing, Ad-aware found 3. Rebooted in normal, and the thing is still popping up.

Hmmmmm.............
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[fussnfeathers]

Try disabling the Real auto-updater you have running there. That might be popping up a small IE window for the update download. Same with anything else other than an AV program or Windows Update. Alot of those media programs do wierd things sometimes.
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Big enough to scare you

[Spiegel]

Well, I disabled the real update, and here's what I get now...




Oh, and it's still doing the window popup thing.... grrr this is getting frustrating!
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[fussnfeathers]

You still show "realsched.exe" in your program list. That's the only thing there that I could see as a potential problem. Shut that process down, you don't need it. Then see if it keeps happening.
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Big enough to scare you

[Fitz Goran]

Have you tried HijackThis? This could be a BHO.

Also a process can be setup to NOT show up in Task Manager, most of the malice programs I have seen lately are hidden from Task Manager.

[Spiegel]

Yeah, I noticed that realsched was still in there right after I posted. I had disabled it the other day in msconfig, but somehow it came back. So I went back in, disabled it again, then went and dug around in realplayer and manually shut it off, permanently. But, alas, they little window thing at the bottom is still popping up, and it's still doing the exact same things it was doing before.
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[fussnfeathers]

Agreed on HijackThis, you've pretty much eliminated anything legit that could be causing the popup. Malicious software will only run for a sec or so, so unless you're staring at your Task Manager for an hour, you might never see it.

I wish I could remember the one I got hit with awhile back.......did the same thing, was a nightmare to figure out.
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Big enough to scare you

[Mr.Fixit]

[[KoG]^weaZel]

also have you tried CCleaner? good little proggy that helps out alot.

But as Fitz said HiJackThis is going to be needed to catch this one.
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I tweaked and it tweaked back! So I Tweaked some more!

"Barney is like the Michael Jackson of PBS." - James Tybeerious