CMD window keeps flashing open in XP Home

[PaulE]

A friend is running XP Home and he says it is fully up-to-date. He says he
keeps getting a CMD window flash open for a second, disappear, only to
reappear again and again and again. The window is completely blank and he
was able to send me a screen capture and there is simply nothing in the
screen itself (apart from the CMD title - no command prompt).

He does not seem to be a very adventurous web surfer so hopefully he has not
got a virus that is newer than the anti-virus data files. He has reportedly
run a full anti-virus scan.

He has run anti-spyware scans.

He has tried booting into Safe Mode.

He has tried a System Restore to two early times and it did restore, but no
change to the problem..

He does not have WMIC so he could not output a list of processes for me to
look at.

I had him unplug all devices (Ethernet, USB, etc.) and still nothing
changed.

So, because he does not know how to use newsgroups, I am posting in the
hopes someone can point me/him in a direction that might help get to the
bottom of this.

TIA for any tips.

Paul

 

[Tracy]

Just a thought, but....
Is there anything in Scheduled Tasks that is running a .bat file?
Reason I ask is because I have .bat files run on a regular basis to copy
files.
A bad .bat file for a scheduled task can cause the problem you're
describing..

Tracy

 

[PaulE]

I will have him look today, thank you.

Just a thought, but....
Is there anything in Scheduled Tasks that is running a .bat file?
Reason I ask is because I have .bat files run on a regular basis to copy
files.
A bad .bat file for a scheduled task can cause the problem you're
describing..

Tracy