The thing about malware these days is that it's very tricky to find, let
alone eliminate. The lucky ones get infected with something everyone
knows about (if you can call that luck.) Others get hit with something
that's hard to pinpoint because it keeps changing its form, or because
it disguises itself as part of the operating system. Also, if you've
been picking away at it you may have removed just enough so that a
scanner can no longer see it.
The startup tab of the system configuration utility (aka msconfig) was
designed as way to test which item that runs at startup is causing a
problem for the PC. Basically, you start with everything prevented from
starting, then you allow one thing at a time to start until you hit on
which startup item is causing the problem. It's tedious, but it usually
works.
Once you know which startup item is causing a problem, you find out
which program 'owns' that startup item and troubleshoot in the program
itself. Msconfig is not the cure - it's the diagnostic tool. It's not a
good idea to interfere with a program's startup process on a full-time
basis.
Of course, malware will often try to insert itself in Windows startup.
Once you have determined that a startup item belongs to malware you have
to get rid of the malware. These days, that means trying half a dozen or
more different scanners, or (if you're lucky) finding specific manual
removal instructions from the website of one of the major anti-malware
companies, a HiJackThis analysis and, when nothing else works, a clean
install.
---
Ted Zieglar
"Backup is a computer user's best friend."
Roughneck wrote:
> Yes, I understand msconfig doesn't remove malware--in fact it doesn't remove
> anything on it's own--it just provides an interface for making manual changes
> to a PC's configuration, including which items will run at startup. What I
> was trying to say is I haven't yet used msconfig to remove MSWin.exe
> manually--I'm hoping to get some feedback about it on this forum to see if
> people here agree that it is in fact some form of malware. I ran NAV and
> SpySweeper (both current in regard to definition updates) and neither of them
> flagged MSWin.exe. I've also run Spybot and AdAware within the last few
> weeks with current updates and they didn't flag it either. Since the google
> search indicates MSWin.exe is malware but none of the apps I mentioned
> flagged it as a problem/risk, I'm trying to determine whether or not it's
> really malware/adware/spyware/virus etc. >> Stay informed about: Is MSWin.exe some form of malware? 
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