Does my freind have a virus?

[DanaK]

I'm trouble shooting a friend's computer that is running
XP Home, SP2. It may have an infection but I'm not sure
as McAfee doesn't turn up anything on a scan. However,
when running in normal or safe mode it's very slow due to
the fact there are 10 instances of iexplore.exe running in
the Processes list in Task Manager and all of these
instances are taking up 100% of the processor's time. I
even unchecked everything in msconfig and restarted and
the same situation reappeared with the exception that the
iexplore.exe instances were interspersed throughout the
other programs instead of all at the top of the list under
normal bootup.

I haven't found a virus description that does this and
he's had this condition on his computer for at least a
month. Is there any way to find out what causes
iexplore.exe (I'm assuming this is Internet Explorer's
executable) to be present this many times? IE is not open
on the desktop it's just showing up in the Task Manager in
XP.

Thanks.

 

[Kelly Cotter]

I'm trouble shooting a friend's computer that is running
XP Home, SP2. It may have an infection but I'm not sure
as McAfee doesn't turn up anything on a scan. However,
when running in normal or safe mode it's very slow due to
the fact there are 10 instances of iexplore.exe running in
the Processes list in Task Manager and all of these
instances are taking up 100% of the processor's time. I
even unchecked everything in msconfig and restarted and
the same situation reappeared with the exception that the
iexplore.exe instances were interspersed throughout the
other programs instead of all at the top of the list under
normal bootup.

I haven't found a virus description that does this and
he's had this condition on his computer for at least a
month. Is there any way to find out what causes
iexplore.exe (I'm assuming this is Internet Explorer's
executable) to be present this many times? IE is not open
on the desktop it's just showing up in the Task Manager in
XP.

Thanks.

sp2 is still a beta make sure it's the latest rc2 official release

then download and run these be sure to update them

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ adaware

http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=download spybot

http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=download cwshredder

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html some other usefull removal
tools

also do a full virus scan

 

[Lester Stiefel]

I'm trouble shooting a friend's computer that is running
XP Home, SP2. It may have an infection but I'm not sure
as McAfee doesn't turn up anything on a scan. However,
when running in normal or safe mode it's very slow due to
the fact there are 10 instances of iexplore.exe running in
the Processes list in Task Manager and all of these
instances are taking up 100% of the processor's time. I
even unchecked everything in msconfig and restarted and
the same situation reappeared with the exception that the
iexplore.exe instances were interspersed throughout the
other programs instead of all at the top of the list under
normal bootup.

I haven't found a virus description that does this and
he's had this condition on his computer for at least a
month. Is there any way to find out what causes
iexplore.exe (I'm assuming this is Internet Explorer's
executable) to be present this many times? IE is not open
on the desktop it's just showing up in the Task Manager in
XP.

Thanks.

If they have webfolder view enabled, or a picture on the
desktop, this may be starting up the extra instances of
iexplore. All the special folder views or a specific graphic
on desk will utilize Net explorer.

The antivirus may have been breached by a clever hacker,
and your friend may still have a virus. Go to an online
scanner site (Network associates, Mcafee,etc. ) and use
their online scanners, bypassing the installed application.
Also , download and use a adware/parasite scanner such as
Spybot S&D or Ad-Aware.