Questions on Signed drivers and files

[MikeC]

I have a Windows XP system that I am working on that
exhibits unusual behavior when attempting to download or
access secure sites. The accessing issues are activeX
issues where the system does not have permission/privs to
access secure sites or even download windows updates.
This occurs even when logged in as administrator. Have
done everything that Microsoft suggested for this problem
but still occurs. In persuing this, I have found that
there are a number of system core files which have not
been digitally signed. These show up in the sigverif.exe
list. NTOSKRNL.exe is one of the files listed as being
unsigned.

Is there a list of which core files should be listed as
not being signed?

Anyone know of any ActiveX issues (or other related
security issues) that prevent this system from being able
to download updates and patches?

 

[Drew Cooper [MSFT]]

That's a problem. Ntoskrnl.exe should be signed. It's indirectly signed
(meaning "catalog-signed"), so the signature tab of the file properties UI
won't show the signature (until SP2 is applied), but sigverif.exe should
still find the signature. If your ntoskrnl isn't signed, it might not be
from Microsoft. No telling what other images might be wrong, too.

Have you scanned your machine with sfc.exe recently? Virus scans?