[sillybuttons™]

Hi all. Using Win XP PRO SP2
First question is does anyone know if this is a valid exe or is it something with sinister motives? C:\fb4b2f7bbd15c530aa9258b8\setup.exe. I found it in my firewall and thought it looked dubious so I've blocked it until I can establish its intentions.

Second, My automatic update has turned itself off and wont turn back on. I have followed all the solutions I can find and thought It was fixed but when I booted my computer up again it had turned off again. When I click the box to turn it on nothing happens. I got an error message the first time I tried it said
"We're sorry the Security Centre could change your automatic updates settings. To try changing these settings yourself, go to System in Control Panel. On the Automatic Updates tab select Automatic(reccomended) then click OK. "
I done this and the System in Control Panel reckons that it is on. Yet, my security center says it is turned off. Ive got a little red shield with a white x on it in my task tray.

Another thing which I think may be related to my auto update problem (just guessing though) is when I run sfc/scannow in command prompt I get the message
"Files that are required to run properly must be copied to the DLL cache. Insert your Windows XP Proffesional Service Pack 2 CD now"
Problem is I havent got one. My computer has got one of them built in complete restore thingymajigs (I dont know the proper name).

Also, when I start up my computer my RAM usage is at 90% and I have to use a program called speed up my PC to manually recover the RAM before I can start to do anything. The only additional programs I start up that the computer didnt have originally are Norton 360, PC tools firewall and Speed up my PC (the last of which I only start up to save time when it comes to recovering the ram. I have had this particular problem for a while now but it never bothered me. I just thought it would be worth a mention while I'm here.

Thanks in advance for any help I get.
SB™

[sillybuttons™]

Sorry for double post but this is weird. I was explaining to my girlfriend what the problem was and when I clicked to turn on automatic updates it did it with no fuss. But... theres always a but.... when I rebooted the same problem happened. Thought I better add this in case it helps.

Also when I restarted firefox and selected this site from my bookmarks a tab opened up at hornymatches.com. I assure you I'm not looking for a horny match. This is seeming more and more like malware

[lunarlander]

Since you have some adware infection ( hornymatches ) I suggest you install Ad-aware ( http://lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php ) and Spybot ( http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html ) . They should be able to clean up some infections.

I don't have any solutions for your Automatic Update problem. But there's a manual work-around: Microsoft issues their patches on every second Tuesday of the month. So you can schedule yourself to run Windows Update on that day.

[sillybuttons™]

Well, it was malware. Loads of the stuff. Just about every dialler, downloader, fake anti malware program and anything else you care to mention was on my machine. I had to do a full destructive restore and everything is fixed now (except I've lost my FFVII save and I was right near the end after playing for 100+ hours). Anyhoo as a last resort I ran norton with a comprehensive scan to see if there was any hope but it was finding the infections and checking them but not regestering them as risks. So, when this happened I thought it was time to give up. Now that I'm up and running again I've searched for C:\fb4b2f7bbd15c530aa9258b8\setup.exe and surprise surprise it isn't on my machine anymore. So just a heads up incase anyone finds the same file. I couldnt find anything about it after googling it and no virus encylopedia that I know lists it so it could be the case that it was harmless but who writes a harmless program and names it in hex?


lunarlander - Thanks anyway for your help.

Do I mark this as solved now?

[TechOutsider]

Good job. I think its solved, until next time.

[bkang22]

You should install a firewall, a free one is at zonealarm.com select the free version unless you want the added features of the ones that $. It will prevent those dialers from loading in the first place.