registry editing

[billvolvo]

I have a virus called brontok and downloaded a program to try to remove it.
After running the program it said that I should remove some entries from the
registry. When I ran regedit I was told that registry editing had been
disabled by the administrator. The operating system is xp home edition. How
can I enable registry editing? When I look at my username it says I am an
administrator.

 

[db ´¯`·.. >]

simply modifying the
registry will not rid the
system of the virus, as the
offending program/virus
will simply re-enter the
offending keys into the
registry again.

in fact, for all you know the
virus program is telling you
to modify the registry in order
to misguide you into further
corrupting your system.

obviously you need
contact your administrator
to log in and eliminate the
virus from the disk, the
registry keys will be rendered
useless and irrelevant.

 

[John John]

Malware often disable the registry editing tools, this script by MVP
Doug Knox should lift the restriction:

regtools.vbs - Disable/Enable Registry Editing tools in Windows
http://www.dougknox.com/security/scripts_desc/regtools.htm

John

 

[Bill in Co.]

I've been curious about these .vbs (Visual Basic script) files. They can
be run as if they were executables (i.e. just by typing their file name)?
(I'm more used to .bat, .com. and .exe for that)

 

[John John]

They're sort of like batch files but they are more powerful, in a way I
guess that you could say that they are more like small applications than
batch files. Unlike batch file they need a host environment like
Windows Script Host (WSH) to run them, there are several hosts available
to run them.

VBS scripts are very useful and they can do things that batch files
can't do but personally I think that in many cases they are a way of
doing with twelve lines of instructions what a batch file can do with
one line...

John

 

[Bill in Co.]

And apparently some WSH is installed by default on Windows XP, I gather?

(I can't recall for sure, but I thought I had run one of them in the past,
and if that's the case, then some WSH must be on here)

Thanks for the info.

 

[John John (MVP)]

Yes, WSH has been standard fare in all Microsoft operating systems since
Windows 98.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms950396.aspx

It is no longer being improved, as far as I know there will be no new
versions or features added, PowerShell is the new kid on the block.

John