Cannot access Task Manager or Device Manager in XP??

[Garibaldi]

Hello,

A friend of mine has XP Home installed on his computer. I recently was working to fix his sound card so it would work. When I tried to go into the device manager via My Computer, right-click -> Properties, Hardware, Device Manger, the window opens for only a split second and then closes. Also I tried using Alt-Ctrl-Del to bring up the task manager, but that does the same thing, it opens for second and then closes. I thought this might be spyware so I ran spybot and adaware and removed everything, but it still won't work. Any ideas on how to fix this problem?

[rallynavvie]

Actually sounds like a virus that had been going around a few years ago, can't recall which. Same thing was happening to a friend of mine's PC. Do a virus scan on it in safe mode.

[Garibaldi]

Actually sounds like a virus that had been going around a few years ago, can't recall which. Same thing was happening to a friend of mine's PC. Do a virus scan on it in safe mode.

Thanks, that's a good idea to do it in safe mode. Wouldn't it have the same effect to just do Diognostic Startup?

[rallynavvie]

Only if you're booting from an AV boot disk. I don't even know if there is such a thing but now I'm interested to find out...

[Soopafresh]

Garibaldi - there are a couple of apps which might prove useful for you just to see the processes that are open. If you download

http://www.diamondcs.com.au/index.php?page=apt

you'll be able to see and terminate any process in question. Also, the very excellent PSTOOLS from Http://www.sysinternals.com will allow you to see and kill processes from the command line.


Could he possibly have a popup blocker loaded that is mistaking Task Manager for a popup?

[madvideos]

bet the registry is gone too, well not gone, just hidden from you.. I had the same problem last year, worm.. welcha worm If I remember right. How did I fix it? Re-Installed Windows, went to console first and typed the following
fixdsk
fixmbr
and formatted
Installed
PUT MY ROUTER back on.. silly me.
Killed all the stuff Steve Gibson tells you to kill, just get his aps, shoot the messenger, zone alarm.. etc..

[pfh]

madvideos is right about that worm. Had a friend with the same problem.
Had to use a BartPE boot cd to run a virus and spy scans. This dude had over 500 spyware crap and 3 trojans/viri, one being the welcha!!!!!
Only thing left to do was system recovery (it was a Dell laptop).

[madvideos]

yes the welcha worm is what I had... nasty lil booger.