Long flashlight on Windows Explorer

[Guest]

Windows XPPro. When first boot up and go to Either Windows Explorer or My computer icon to see contents of my computer, the flashlight search icon comes on and the computer searches for about 45 - 60 seconds. (seems very long, while you are waiting. How can this be sped up.

This machine, had the bugbear virus and the downloader.tooncom trojan. They are now removed.

I'm not that familiar with XP and am not sure how long this search should be. This machine was purchased from Gateway and the Gateway tech said that this wait is normal. The two other XP machines I support are much faster on this search.

What steps should I use to fix this?

Andy

 

[Malke]

Windows XPPro. When first boot up and go to Either Windows Explorer
or My computer icon to see contents of my computer, the flashlight
search icon comes on and the computer searches for about 45 - 60
seconds. (seems very long, while you are waiting. How can this be
sped up.

This machine, had the bugbear virus and the downloader.tooncom trojan.
They are now removed.

I'm not that familiar with XP and am not sure how long this search
should be. This machine was purchased from Gateway and the Gateway
tech said that this wait is normal. The two other XP machines I
support are much faster on this search.

The wait is not normal. Did you install an antivirus program and scan
the computer (as opposed to just downloading the specific removal tools
for those viruses)? If you know your machine is clean and you've
removed any other malware such as spyware (with Spybot Search & Destroy
and Ad-aware), and you still have the problem, some Windows files may
have been damaged. Go to Run and type "sfc /scannow" without the
quotes. Have your XP cd ready. Or you may want to do a complete wipe
and reinstall.

Malke

 

[Guest]

Norton shows clean and Spybot shows clean. I just installed SP1 and all other win updates. Load is still slow

You confirmed what I thought. There is searching going on. I'll try the scannow and repair process. For all the time I've spent I could already reformatted and reinstalled

For what it's worth, these are the files that caused the problems.

hh.ht
tips.in
iedll.ex
loader.ex

None are actual windows files. I deleted all reference to them in the registry

Thanks,

And

 

[Lem]

Norton shows clean and Spybot shows clean. I just installed SP1 and all other win updates. Load is still slow.

You confirmed what I thought. There is searching going on. I'll try the scannow and repair process. For all the time I've spent I could already reformatted and reinstalled.

For what it's worth, these are the files that caused the problems.

hh.htt
tips.ini
iedll.exe
loader.exe

None are actual windows files. I deleted all reference to them in the registry.

Thanks,

Andy

Surprising that Norton & Spybot didn't indicate a problem -- do you have updated definitions? In addition to Spybot S&D, download, update, and run Ad-Aware from
www.lavasoftusa.com.

hh.htt and tips.ini are associated with Adware (caught by some Norton security product, but not a/v): http://tinyurl.com/38dy7

loader.exe and iedll.exe are a trojan: http://tinyurl.com/upwl (includes removal instructions)

antivirus and anti-adware applications can't help you if you don't keep them up to date.

 

[Guest]

User had not kept Norton up to date

After updating Norton, the infected files were identified but Norton could not repair or quarantine them, hence the manual removal required

The computer now has a slow initial opening of Internet explorer, windows explorer, or my computer. There may be others. After any opens initially, thereafter all run ok until the computer is shutdown or rebooted. This may be unrelated to the infection problems.

Any thoughts

Andy

 

[Malke]

User had not kept Norton up to date.

After updating Norton, the infected files were identified but Norton
could not repair or quarantine them, hence the manual removal
required.

The computer now has a slow initial opening of Internet explorer,
windows explorer, or my computer. There may be others. After any
opens initially, thereafter all run ok until the computer is shutdown
or rebooted. This may be unrelated to the infection problems.

I can't imagine why you would think this *wasn't* related to the virus
infections. Since you didn't say what the viruses *were*, it's
impossible to tell exactly what damage was done. Assuming the computer
is really really clean (and I wouldn't make that assumption from your
post), you can try 1) run sfc /scannow - have the XP cd in the drive;
2) a Repair Install; 3) or format the drive, clean install Windows,
reinstall programs from cd's, restore data from backups. The best way
to be sure the machine is right is to do #3.

Malke

 

[Dave in Columbus]

Windows XPPro. When first boot up and go to Either Windows Explorer or My computer icon to see contents of my computer, the flashlight search icon comes on and the computer searches for about 45 - 60 seconds. (seems very long, while you are waiting. How can this be sped up.

This machine, had the bugbear virus and the downloader.tooncom trojan. They are now removed.

I'm not that familiar with XP and am not sure how long this search should be. This machine was purchased from Gateway and the Gateway tech said that this wait is normal. The two other XP machines I support are much faster on this search.

What steps should I use to fix this?

Andy

Set your anti-virus auto scan option to check only files with extensions
(all AV programs have a default list) rather than all files.

Might speed things up a bit.

 

[Guest]

I have got this problem, but it is after doing a fresh install of XP from a formatted drive...but with the installation of a few programs. I though it was maybe some sort of IDE problem. It put me off XP and a went back to 98 for about 9 months

I came back to XP recently and had not had the problem...until now after doing a reformat and install+new hard drive. Its driving me mad

Reading the posts here it talked about loader.exe as being a problem file...and believe it or not, I found it in the registry, but I really dont know how it got there since I have just reformatted...

 

[Guest]

I speculate this wasn't related to the latest virus because user had previously complained about speed

Computer ha

bugbear viru
Downloader.Tooncom troja
hh.htt and tips.ini adwar

I cleaned up all three to where all appeared well except for the slow openings. I finally cleaned the hard drive and reinstalled windows

Thanks for the help.