[Copernicus]

System: Pentium, 4.3gb, Win98SE, Ms Office, IE6, and other software bits

Situation: what I have is a Hijackthis.exe that loads, lists, and then stops. Items needing fixing or deleting cannot be checked off.
History: Prior to loading Adaware and Spyblaster, Hijack worked fine. In fact it was the response to a Hijack log that I submitted that prompted me to download those two additional items. Yes, they work, although Spyblaster or SeeknClean, not sure which, likes to remove one file that Adaware thinks is important to it. I can watch for that manually so that is not a significant problem. No, SeeknClean is not the problem as it got along with hijack this prior to this problem occurring.

Analysis: What I think has happened is that one of those two, Ad-a or Spy-b, has removed a file that hijack needs to function properly and won't let hijack replace it because one of them possibly views it as some type of malware, trojan,or virus.

Actions taken to date: I have tried deleting Hijack and reloading from two different sources; no luck.
I have tried contacting the author of hijack but my registration for his site has not come through yet.
I have run Adaware using the deep scan cycle, which I might add, took several hours and investigated more "objects" than I ever dreamed existed on my hard drive.
I have not tried to remove Adaware or spyblaster but, if all else fails that may prove to be the last resort.

Question: Could the missing file possibly be located in the quarantine file of Adaware?
Assuming it still exists, can I retrieve it from exile and if so where should it be re-installed?
Is it possible that the problem is a matter of protocol, i.e. who goes first on the list of files written to C:?
Should Hijack be located in the Program files or in its own folder or in the Windows folder?
Any questions, suggestions or possible options I can pursue would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Byteman]

Hi,
I use HijackThis very often, and on other people's computers, never had any problem with it. I do notice that there can be a 10 to 15 second "delay" from start of it till it ends detection and then I can check things in the boxes....
None of the programs would remove anything to affect the other- sometimes, there may be partly removed items that users have messed around with prior to using the good tools, that could cause a problem. You have tried redownloading twice, so i dont think that is the problem. HJT only can make easily found backups if run from a permanent folder, such as one you make...or My Documents, My Downloads, so on....You can simply drag and drop the Hijackthis.exe file to another location if you are running it from a temp location.
None of the programs remove anything automatically, either....
until you push the yes button. Did you use HJT yourself to take out things?
The other two tools also make and save backups until you manually delete them, so anything removed should still be available. Neither of them would remove anything from HijackThis, at least this would be a "first" to me.... SeekNClean I am not familiar with. SeekNClean info says it finds and deletes over 40 space wasting files....which makes it a logical suspect, too. Perhaps, try putting back what it removed or at least, posting in a reply what files it did remove might help.....

There is some malware that can interfere with programs like HJT, ....which is what I suspect. Could you please post a Hijack log for review?

 

[Copernicus]

Thanks for the response.
I'll try to post a copy of the log as you've suggested although I personally suspect this ability may have been impaired as well. Problem with posting is that, even if there proves to be a virus present to which Hijack is susceptible, how would I off it? AVG my resident virus hunter has been damned efficient about hunting id-ing and killing pests for me so it would have to be something both pecularly specific and lethal for it to be missed (like those don't exist!!!)
I will not be posting immediately as housecleaning is not scheduled for a day or two-it takes forever given all the spy hunters I'm using.
I'll post to your direct attention.

Later, Copernicus.

 

[Copernicus]

Pentium, dell 17" monitor, 98SE, MS Office

Situation
Before I logged on tthis evening I reviewed the quarantine logs of Adaware and found two interesting items. Tagged as dialers they carried the descriptions C:\cwshredder\unzipped\hijackthis[1]\backup-.......dll, with two different number codes as part of their lines. one was a dialer and the other a webdialer. For some reason Adaware has moved them into quarantine. Now I have to figure out a way to restore them. Problem is I no longer have hijackthis[1] in the cwshredder file. I deleted it as part of my attempt to reload hijack.

Analysis

If I understand the situation correctly, adaware is perceiving those .dll files as hostile and wants to isolate them. Based on that premise any .dll file matching the parameters adaware has set as hostile automatically suffers the same fate. That would mean that hijack would download and run only until it listed the contents of C: it was interested in. Any attempt to work with those files would be perceived as hostile and thwarted.
Now what do I do?

 

[Flrman1]

Copernicus

I have merged your new thread with the original one. Please continue with one thread until your situation is resolved.