Access violation on bosses PC

[iNeb]

I'm trying to stop a program from running at startup, because it's messing up his PC.

He's on XP Home and whenever i go to start > run and try 'msconfig' or 'regedit' it spits out this message:

Memory Access Violation In Module Kernel32 at 3269:91193659

What's wrong?

have you tried to boot into safe mode and try it?

is the program listed in the start up folder.

and sometimes

[iNeb]

No, the program is not listed in the start menu folder, i rebooted into safe mode and that didn't work.

The program i'm trying to get rid of is 'aeti.exe' for some reason, when he boots up in normal mode, it doesn't show the desktop icons or the explorer bar, only way to get to programs is to ctrl alt delete and go to file > start task

He's had this problem before with a 'WinUpdate.exe' (What seemed to be a virus) file so i went through and canceled all the non-known tasks and when i ended 'aeti.exe' the desktop goes back to normal.

I've googled 'aeti.exe' and nothing comes up, so i don't know what this is. When you end 'aeti.exe' a system error comes up and says it's recovered from an error and another error message comes up (I can get the message for you)

So i have no idea what's up, i'm not sure if he has to format his system, he has alot of important files he needs to backup in alot of places, so that would take me alot of time since he isn't the one to know about these things.

Luckily i found a WinXP Pro cd + key in one of his cabinets, so if i have to format his system, i will. I went with him a few months ago and had him buy a 40GB backup drive to back up all his folders, so if i have to back it up for him it will be easy not having to backup them to multiple cds

[TOAD6147]

N
Have you tried virus scans and Ad-aware?

[iNeb]

Well, i just went over to his house (He lives access the street, that's how i got the job )

Tried running AVG and it gave an access memory error, so i tried housecall and the first thing it found was WORM_SWEN.A - it deleted that and now IE doesn't work, when you load it up it gives an error.

Well, the virus scan hasn't finished, i will come back and update on what Housecall and Ad-Aware finds..

[iNeb]

Well, back again, still not finished, but it has found 3 more trojans/worms/viruses

TROJ_WINSHOW.A
JAVA_BYTVERIFY.A
BKDR_RSBOT.A

Two are just startpage redirectors and the other one is a backdoor agent, and he isn't smart enough to run a firewall, but i think his xp firewall is on

[iNeb]

Found 4 more:

JS_EXCEPTION.GEN
TROJ_GEMAD.A
DDOS_DESEX.A - Anyone know?
TROJ_DLOADER.DZ

Well, good news housecall fixed all the problems, was able to get into msconfig, regedit and such, the desktop icons are back.

Bad news he fell for the MAPI32 error from SWEN.A, now the programers have his email username and password, told him to change it right away, but he was too lazy, oh well..

[NeoStarO1]

Originally posted by iNeb
but i think his xp firewall is on

Having his XP firewall isn't enough, The XP firewall is only a one direction firewall. Meaning it only blocks outgoing things. So if he had a dialer on his pc and his XP firewall is activated XP Firewall is suppose to stop this from happening. HOwever its not a very effective firewall protection.

I seriously encourage you to have him install a third party firewall application such as:

NIS200X (Norton Internet Security)
ZoneAlarm
Sygate

Plus encourage him ot have a regular antivirus program going on his machine that not only scans his outgoing and incoming traffic on the net but his outgoing and incoming email as well. Plus if he is useing Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Outlook Express get his preview panes turned off.

NIS200X (is a firewall and AV built together)
AVG (freeware)

for the oneline one you are already familiar with housecall. The spyware programs out there you are im sure familiar with so I won't list them here.

There are very few things a person needs to do to protect thier system from unwanted critters.

[iNeb]

Yes, he has AVG, but the virus scanner was diabled from the virus.

He's not a smart guy computer wise, and like i said, i tried a firewall with him, and he just got too confused, also, like i said, he has xp firewall for outgoing, and a hardware firewall for incoming. I'm not too sure how good the xp firewall is, but at least it's something for him to use!

He only uses outlook for contacts for his business, and his ISP for his email.

[someone16]

Does he have a password on? I didn't do that before and viruses flew into my comp.

Just a suggestion.