You are playing with files (text editor etc) and getting rid of whatever, even though it may be legit.
Good Luck with what you are doing, maybe it will in the end teach people not to play with programs, systems and text editors etc. with what you don't understand and leave alone.
For Instance 2 things
a) If the files are bad, playing with them by text editor or other programs if the user does not know what they are doing could mean you are starting the process off again by doing procedures wrong.
b) "If I end the process tree of msdt.exe, within 5 minutes, its back and has all 4+4 processors pegged." did you even look up the file name for msdt.exe and location for at least a face value of what is the file??
You don't need my help to do to the system what you are doing, I also will not be a a part of it.
"The others are .exes and files I can't open with text editor." was stating the obvious "So this thread also knows"
Is that how you get so many posts? by touting the obvious?
I'm not looking for YOUR help, obviously, but someone from Norton / Symantec, maybe.
"a) If the files are bad, playing with them by text editor or other programs if the user does not know what they are doing could mean you are starting the process off again by doing procedures wrong. "
****Come on. Seriously****
b) "If I end the process tree of msdt.exe, within 5 minutes, its back and has all 4+4 processors pegged." did you even look up the file name for msdt.exe and location for at least a face value of what is the file??
Go ahead, scan YOUR system for msdt.exe (you'll find a bunch).
"The acieclx.vbs file contains the following code:
Set objSh = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") objSh.Run "C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Templates\atieclx.exe", 0
The others are .exes and files I can't open with text editor."
With me what I say is final for myself. I will not be touching your system. I laearned not to touch those systems the hard way also.
"Is that how you get so many posts? by touting the obvious?" due to the fact removing malware and fixing Windows can take a few messages back and forth.
"Go ahead, scan YOUR system for msdt.exe (you'll find a bunch)." I don't need to as I know how to get around a system, know where is what, test malware and so don't need to scan my system when someone asks me to.
I am actually going to remove your other thread as your thread is here.
I was hoping to peak the interest of some of the people who really get into the diagnosing what's going on here.
Anyway, sorry for jumping on you (and I would still REALLY appreciate anyone who can look into this).
I'm considering just blowing away the whole machine with a clean Windows install but there are some apps on it that I would have a tough time running down my install disks and licenses, and the "detective" in me just wants to get some idea of what kind of jerk would write an app like this (and what is it doing with my cpu cycles)? If its doing math to find extra-terrestrials, I might kick in a few cycles for free. :)
It's always possible that malware could be camouflaging itself as one of these files, so if they're still on your system then you can submit them to VirusTotal for analysis. If you suspect you are infected with malware then you can register with any of the recommended malware removal sites suggested here by delphinium - with the obvious exception of Quad's QmalwareRemoval site.
If you've already removed any of these files off your system without confirming that you were actually infected with malware then I wouldn't be surprised if you've corrupted at least one of your hardware drivers.
------------ MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * Firefox 26.0 * IE 9.0 * NIS 2013 v. 20.4.0.40 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
I will post a bunch of the Norton-generated text files and more info this afternoon.
(By the way, I'm VERY close to doing a clean re-install and just going to get Windows 8.1) but will keep trying on this for another week, I think.
Thanks for all the help and suggestions.
Oh, and also thanks to Imacri for the link to VirusTotal. I did submit BOTH my problem .exe's there and the BOTH were recognized as viruses. I will post that info as well.
Another data point. Since the new account seemed to have no troubles, I blew away the login that was giving us trouble. Created a second new account.
So now i have 2 accounts with everything working fine. I.e., the virus did not make its attempt to run and norton did not have to block it.
Then I left the machine up (with the new account logged in) for about 2 hours. Came back to check on it and we couldn't get out on the internet (which was one of the problems before). The cpu cycle stealer isn't running though.
Rebooted and logged in to that same account...and still no internet.
Rebooted and logged in to the other account and we have connectivity fine.
So, I'm going to leave this unaffected account up for a few hours and see if its connectivity goes away.
If so, I'm just going to blow away the whole machine.
This has been a massive waste of time and effort, but it has been interesting.
Hi, robsin12. I called it an *update* to Win 8.1 rather than an *upgrade* !, because I haven't heard that many people who have been full of praise for Windows 8.1 !
There were and still may be some incompatibilities with Windows 8.1 and The Norton Toolbar, which is why I suggested you update everything, to hopefully ensure compatibility.
