cmd (or regedit) is not a valid win32 application

K

Kevin McCormick

I recently ran into this while cleaning up some spyware and viruses of
a heavily infested computer. I first breifly searched the newsgroups
for a solution and found no solution.

I did however find the solution on my own.

You must first go to Tools menu and choose Folder Options.
Next choose the View tab.
Select Show hidden files and folders.
Next uncheck the box next to Hide extensions for known file types.
Then uncheck the box next to Hide protected operating system files
(Recommended).

No go in to the C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder and the look for cmd (or
regedit).

You'll find two files with same name, but with different extensions.

Delete the file with the .com extension, also note they are 0 KB in
size.

In my case I also found .com files blocking the shortcut command for
netstat, ping, taskkill, tasklist, and tracert.

Not all the .com files are bad, so delete with caution!!!

Only delete the files for commands that are not working.

Now undo the changes you made in the Folder Options above.
 
W

Wesley Vogel

Also Known As: W32.Alcan.A, Win32.Alcan.A [Computer Associates],
P2P-Worm.Win32.Alcan.a [Kaspersky Lab], W32/Alcan.worm!p2p [McAfee],
W32/Alcra-A [Sophos], WORM_ALCAN.A [Trend Micro]

[[This worm drops the legitimate file compression DLL, BSZIP.DLL in the
Windows system folder. It does this so it can compress itself. It also drops
the following files in the Windows system folder:

CMD.COM
NETSTAT.COM
PING.COM
REGEDIT.COM
TASKKILL.COM
TASKLIST.COM
TRACERT.COM

These files contain the string MZ so that this worm can disable the
following Windows tool applications:

CMD.EXE
NETSTAT.EXE
PING.EXE
REGEDIT.EXE
TASKKILL.EXE
TASKLIST.EXE
TRACERT.EXE ]]
From...
WORM_ALCAN.A - Technical details
http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=WORM_ALCAN.A&VSect=T

Symantec Security Response - W32.Alcra.A
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.alcra.a.html

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
D

David H. Lipman

From: "Kevin McCormick" <[email protected]>

| I recently ran into this while cleaning up some spyware and viruses of
| a heavily infested computer. I first breifly searched the newsgroups
| for a solution and found no solution.
|
| I did however find the solution on my own.
|
| You must first go to Tools menu and choose Folder Options.
| Next choose the View tab.
| Select Show hidden files and folders.
| Next uncheck the box next to Hide extensions for known file types.
| Then uncheck the box next to Hide protected operating system files
| (Recommended).
|
| No go in to the C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder and the look for cmd (or
| regedit).
|
| You'll find two files with same name, but with different extensions.
|
| Delete the file with the .com extension, also note they are 0 KB in
| size.
|
| In my case I also found .com files blocking the shortcut command for
| netstat, ping, taskkill, tasklist, and tracert.
|
| Not all the .com files are bad, so delete with caution!!!
|
| Only delete the files for commands that are not working.
|
| Now undo the changes you made in the Folder Options above.

Now clean the malware that made those chages !

Download MULTI_AV.EXE from the URL --
http://www.ik-cs.com/programs/virtools/Multi_AV.exe

To use this utility, perform the following...
Execute; Multi_AV.exe { Note: You must use the default folder C:\AV-CLS }
Choose; Unzip
Choose; Close

Execute; C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT
{ or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS }

NOTE: You may have to disable your software FireWall or allow WGET.EXE to go through your
FireWall to allow it to download the needed AV vendor related files.

C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT -- { or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS}
This will bring up the initial menu of choices and should be executed in Normal Mode.
This way all the components can be downloaded from each AV vendor's web site.
The choices are; Sophos, Trend, McAfee, Kaspersky, Exit this menu and Reboot the PC.

You can choose to go to each menu item and just download the needed files or you can
download the files and perform a scan in Normal Mode. Once you have downloaded the files
needed for each scanner you want to use, you should reboot the PC into Safe Mode [F8 key
during boot] and re-run the menu again and choose which scanner you want to run in Safe
Mode. It is suggested to run the scanners in both Safe Mode and Normal Mode.

When the menu is displayed hitting 'H' or 'h' will bring up a more comprehensive PDF help
file. http://www.ik-cs.com/multi-av.htm

Additional Instructions:
http://pcdid.com/Multi_AV.htm


* * * Please report back your results * * *
 

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