what is wininit?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stephen Porter
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Stephen Porter

Hello, I'm new to Vista. I purchased a toshiba laptop and was just going
through all the processes that are running and I found wininit.exe and
wininit.dll. I looked the .exe up online and a lot of sites said it was a
virus. Computer seems to be running fine but curious if it is or if it's
just a normal process that vista uses. Btw I have Vista Premium if that
matters.

Thanks!!
 
Stephen said:
Hello, I'm new to Vista. I purchased a toshiba laptop and was just going
through all the processes that are running and I found wininit.exe and
wininit.dll. I looked the .exe up online and a lot of sites said it was
a virus. Computer seems to be running fine but curious if it is or if
it's just a normal process that vista uses. Btw I have Vista Premium if
that matters.

Thanks!!
Click to expand...
I would run a virus scan just to be sure.
 
Do not run any antivirus but I do suggest to download and install a free
(forever) for individual users antivirus and antispy program: Spybot Search
& Destroy (German).

I just checked my windows\system32 directory: your file is there. I have run
SB S&D many times.

Tomorrow morning I will check my brand new Vista machine at teh office and
see if this file is there. I am sue it is.

A lot of those websites are set by crooks. They claim that normal windows
execs are viruses. It frightens you and leads you to buy their wares. It is
not to say that there are no viruses and the same people may be writing
them.

Read this thread:
https://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2393102&SiteID=17

Quotes from this thread:
I have seen, from a plethora of sites after searching for said .exe with
google, that this is a trojan lef tover from the wolf virus..
Is this true? If it is, it is cleverly disguised.
I tried searching the TechNet for pages on the .exe, but to no avail, errors
galore.

Answer:
Thank you for your post.



No, Wininit.exe is a system built-in file. Actually, it is called "Windows
Start-Up Application" and exists under Windows\System32.



I suspect that the websites you referred may be for virus with the same file
name, or the Wininit.exe was infected.



Thanks!



Sincerely,

Joson Zhou

Microsoft Online Community Support
 
This is the correct answer from a very reliable poster. Ignore the other
posts. It is the windows initialisation program. If you have two copies of
it running it would indicate a potential problem, but not one copy.
 
Ok guys, well thank you for all the responses. I ran AVG and was no viruses.

Been such a long time since I posted/read newsgroups, glad people still use
them!!!

Take care,
Stephen
 
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