Win XP Home -- Cannot find executables ... Virus?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Don Creighton
  • Start date Start date
D

Don Creighton

I looked at a friend's machine yesterday to try and save
his important files. It's a WinXP Home machine that has
behavior preventing access to the security/virus tools.
I did not want to reload Win XP Home before I asked this
question of you ...

The symptoms: (1) dbl-clk on any desktop program
produces a "Cannot find (that program) ..." even though
it is there (e.g., in Program Files
or /windows/system32, ...). (2) trying to run recovery
tools from CD or floppy produces similar message for any
dlls that typically come from .../system32 or any other
common locaiton on HD. (3) running Norton from CD (which
I'd expect to be self-contained) produces "Error running
d:/nu/nav..." without specifics. (4) can't run "regedit"
for same reasons cited.

I was able to run tools like explorer.exe by search-open
folder-right-clk-open but never by dbl-clk or Programs
menu.

Is this machine terminal? Is this known behavior of one
or more viruses? Will OS reinstall solve the problem and
preserve the users files (pretty much)?
 
Don said:
I looked at a friend's machine yesterday to try and save
his important files. It's a WinXP Home machine that has
behavior preventing access to the security/virus tools.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a virus.
I did not want to reload Win XP Home before I asked this
question of you ...
Click to expand...

Probably too late, but I'll try to help :)
The symptoms: (1) dbl-clk on any desktop program
produces a "Cannot find (that program) ..." even though
it is there (e.g., in Program Files
or /windows/system32, ...).
Click to expand...

Sounds like some soft of malicious redirect.
(2) trying to run recovery
tools from CD or floppy produces similar message for any
dlls that typically come from .../system32 or any other
common locaiton on HD.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's screwed up filesystem permissions.
(3) running Norton from CD (which
I'd expect to be self-contained) produces "Error running
d:/nu/nav..." without specifics. (4) can't run "regedit"
for same reasons cited.

I was able to run tools like explorer.exe by search-open
folder-right-clk-open but never by dbl-clk or Programs
menu.

Is this machine terminal? Is this known behavior of one
or more viruses? Will OS reinstall solve the problem and
preserve the users files (pretty much)?
Click to expand...

Probably terminal. Yeah, maybe some viruses do this, but also some trojan
horses allow enough control over a remote user's computer so as to let
someone intentionally screw with it.
OS reinstall? Depends on how you look at it. If the user continues not
being security-conscious, it's over before it began. If you do a fresh
install of winXP (i.e. total reformat of hard drive) and then immediately
have them buy a good antivirus and firewall, maybe the problem will be
averted.
However, there is another option: install Linux on their machine, create a
user for them, and don't tell them the admin password. Either that, or do
the same with windows (and do NOT make that person an admin under any
circumstances. we ought not to login and use our OS's as admin for a good
reason: any program we run uses admin permissions, and if the program(s)
are poorly written they can inadvertently destroy what was once a good OS).
But just remember that Microsoft isn't the only answer.
 
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