Can’t install Malwarebytes

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I’m running WinXP Pro and can’t get Malwarebytes to run on my computer after installation. It seems to install ok but when I click the icon to run the program, nothing happens. I’ve installed and re installed, still no luck. Anyone have a suggestion as to what might be wrong?:mellow:

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New Lounger,

You may already have an infection which is causing the problem. Where did you download Malwarebytes? Here’s the Official Site. Note, it is Malwarebytes.ORG not .com! I’d suggest using one or two of the online scanners from the major AV vendors, i.e. Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro, etc. You could also download the SuperAntiSpyware and try to clean things up with it. :cheers:

P.S. Malwarebytes does need Administrative level access to run.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Possible you might have a virus that keeps it from running. Try starting the computer in safe mode and running if from there.

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Thanks guys. I ran install as Admin in safe mode. Installed ok and returned to normal operating mode. It said it needed updating, let it update then wanted to re boot. When returned to normal mode won’t work.

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Then boot back into safemode and run the program from there.

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Then boot back into safemode and run the program from there.

That’s not a viable option, but thanks for your reply.

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Squire,

CLiNT, didn’t mean to run it from there all the time only to see if there is currently something currently blocking it and get rid of it so it can run from normal mode. :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Quite often, when infected, booting into safe mode will allow you to install anti-malware apps and rid yourself of malware that the infection will not allow in regular mode.

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Squire,
You’re a little to far away for me to do a Service Call for you, so I have to ask all sorts of dumb sounding questions. OK?

Do you run your PC as an Administrator? I’ve found that even that does not give you 100% permission on every program and function.
You didn’t state if you have Service Pack III on your PC. ???

The program we use in Windows 7 to give you all sorts of added permissions is “Take Ownership”, which does work in XP-Pro.
I run XP-Pro-SP3 myself and I have to use “Take Ownership” quite often to gain full access to something.
There is now a upgrade to Take Ownership, called “Grant Full Admin Control”, which also works with XP.
I call it Take Ownership on Steroids!

If you want, you can download that here:
http://www.box.net/shared/hfjzhq3z64e2f475dvn1

It adds itself to your ‘Right Click Context Menu’. Just right click on your Malwarebytes folder in windows explorer and then click on “Grant Full Admin Control” to get full control of all the files in that folder. Your problem does seem to be one of Permissions more than anything else.
Or, possibly a conflict with some other program, like some Bogus AV or AS software. There’s a lot of that going around.

I’d also be curious to know what other, if any, anti-malware software you’re running. ???
I run AVG 2011 Internet Security and Malware bytes Pro together, with NO problems at all. If anything, they compliment each other.

Good Luck,
The Doctor

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DrWho,
I don’t run PC as Administrator and I do have Service Pack 3 installed. AntiVirus is Microsoft Security Essentials. I have no other installed at this time. When I had Malwarebytes installed in Safe Mode and under Admin, I scanned and nothing was found. When returned to normal operation I was advised it had to be updated.(it was still installed) I permitted update and was advised after update was complete I neede to re boot. When operation was complete, Malwarebytes wouldn’t work.

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Hi Squire : For problems related to Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, Best to ask on their Support Forums at http://forums.malwarebytes.org . I would start in their “General Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware Forum” . A situation such as yours MAY already have been discussed there & if not, you could start a thread there .

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Thanks to all , I appreciate your efforts in trying to resolve my problem. After such, I’ve decided to reinstall Win XP and start clean. I believe that somewhere in my computer is something blocking this app from running. A clean install will take care of it.

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DrWho,
I don’t run PC as Administrator and I do have Service Pack 3 installed. AntiVirus is Microsoft Security Essentials. I have no other installed at this time. When I had Malwarebytes installed in Safe Mode and under Admin, I scanned and nothing was found. When returned to normal operation I was advised it had to be updated.(it was still installed) I permitted update and was advised after update was complete I neede to re boot. When operation was complete, Malwarebytes wouldn’t work.

A simple way around the problem is to rename MBAM.EXE the main executable for malwarebytes to another name, i always rename it as mouse.exe this name is very rarely blocked by virus as it could be the true mouse program for your computer.

rgds
Syb

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Purchase a cheap SATA to USB cable, or a hard drive dock. These are very inexpensive at Newegg, for example.
Install Malwarebytes on a different computer.
Remove your infected hard drive from the pc/laptop.
Connect (USB) the dock or cable to the computer with Malwarebytes installed, insert/attach your hard drive, and full scan the drive.
Once complete, all malware components will not be removed, only the executable portions. Put your now partially disinfected hard drive back in your computer and it will boot. Install malwarebytes and full scan to remove the remainder.

Yeah it’s a bit more effort, but you will find a dock or sata/usb cable a very handy thing to have, especially when you or your friends get infected again. It is also a nifty tool for doing backups if you happen to come across a spare hard drive.

Best Regards,
Mike Wood

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When my Son managed to infect his PC. I had similar troubles in getting Malwarebytes to run. However I downloaded the software on to my PC and copied it to a memory stick. Plugged it into his PC and ran the software fcrom there. His setting was administrator and the PC has XP with sp3. Paul

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I’ve encountered this problem a number of times in the past. Normally, running rkill.exe (downloadable from BleepingComputer http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/anti-virus/rkill) kills off the process(es) that are preventing MBAM from running and allows you to perform a scan.

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A simple way around the problem is to rename MBAM.EXE the main executable for malwarebytes to another name, i always rename it as mouse.exe this name is very rarely blocked by virus as it could be the true mouse program for your computer.

rgds
Syb

If you go to the Malwarebytes Forum, “THIS IS THE ANSWER: Rename it & run it ” Worked for me

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Some viruses are very clever at spotting trapping and bypassing Malwarebytes.

I’ve had to use MBAM once and it really saved my bacon. And due to restrictions by my IT dept I couldn’t use safe mode. I managed it only by clicking its icon as soon as it appeared during the boot before the virus/trojan had a chance to bypass it. I think I remember having to reboot a couple of times before I got my clicks in ahead of the virus activity.

I now keep a copy of MBAM on a memory stick just in case. Along with a copy of RKILL which helps a bit.

Good luck.

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A simple way around the problem is to rename MBAM.EXE the main executable for malwarebytes to another name, i always rename it as mouse.exe this name is very rarely blocked by virus as it could be the true mouse program for your computer.

rgds
Syb

Another slight enhancement to this approach: It may be better to make a copy of the MBAM.EXE file and rename that so that you still have MBAM.EXE in the same folder too. Malwarebytes can get you to restart the computer to complete the cleanup process, and when it does, it will be looking for MBAM.EXE not MOUSE.EXE.

Ian

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All good tips above; here’s another couple:

On a clean machine, download Process Explorer. Rename the procexp.exe program file to iexplore.exe. Some malware will stop *every* .exe program; but they will never stop iexplore.exe, as the malware needs Internet Explorer to do its crimes. Take the renamed Process Explorer to the infected machine, and run it. From there, you should be able to kill the malware processes, after which you can run MalwareBytes or any other malware fighting tool (I might recommend ComboFix).

Some malware will corrupt the registry so that anytime you run a .exe it will run another instance of the malware. Fixing this is tricky. First, start a command prompt using command.com (not cmd — which is an exe and will launch the malware). Change to the c:windows folder, and copy regedit.exe to regedit.com. Run regedit.com and go to the key hkey_classes_root/.exe and look at the values for evidence of malware. You should compare this key to a known good machine for reference. After fixing this up, your machine should be able to run programs without continually reinfecting itself.

Of course, reformatting and reinstalling Windows might be the easiest option at this point…

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squire, There are definitely times that it’s more time efficient to start over. You have already expended many hours trying to solve this problem without success. A HD format and complete reinstallation will give you a clean system to begin anew. Be sure to get in the habit of creating Images when you get things set up the way you want them. This is very inexpensive insurance against a similar event occuring all over again. I recreate Images whenever I make changes on my system to keep my Image up to date with my system. This way restoring to where I was is about a 10 minute process. Good luck on the reinstallation.

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It doesn’t sound as if you actually had an infection. It sounds like you had a registry error with the installed executable for MBAM.exe.

In the future, you might want to try running SuperAntiSpyware Portable (or even just the regular SuperAntiSpyware, preferably from Safe Mode with network support) if you can’t get MBAM to launch as it should. And once you’ve completed a scan with SAS, try MBAM again. And if MBAM still doesn’t work, uninstall it, grab JV PowerTools Lite 2011 and scan the registry with first the default safe settings, and if that doesn’t fix the issue, again with the registry scanner in the second most aggressive setting.

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You may need to disable your antivirus protection before trying to install Malwarebytes. That’s what I had to do when I used it. After you finish the scan, you then activate your antivirus program.

I’m running WinXP Pro and can’t get Malwarebytes to run on my computer after installation. It seems to install ok but when I click the icon to run the program, nothing happens. I’ve installed and re installed, still no luck. Anyone have a suggestion as to what might be wrong?:mellow:

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Do not know if you tried, but your Firewall (or any other malware program) could be blocking the Malwarebytes running. You can do, as suggested, run in safe mode or (do not suggest) temporarily turn off firewall just to see if it will run. And for sure make sure you downloaded from a legitimate site!!!

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The problem you were having is the new malware that is coming out comes with a trojan that blocks many of the common tools we use to remove bugs including MBAM, SAS and many of the antivirus. There is a tool out there called RKILL that will stop the trojan so you can run your tools. Here is a link to the bleeping computer site that tells about what RKILL does.
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic308364.html
RKILL is free and safe. It will not harm your computer.

peace

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Another thing, you run rkill then you run MBAM or SAS or your antivirus. IF you have a problem running this in normal mode, you reboot and it will run in safe mode too

peace

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I’m running WinXP Pro and can’t get Malwarebytes to run on my computer after installation. It seems to install ok but when I click the icon to run the program, nothing happens. I’ve installed and re installed, still no luck. Anyone have a suggestion as to what might be wrong?:mellow:

I was having this problem. I contacted MBAM support about the issue, and they provided me a link to download. I now have the corporate version and it works fine. MBAM support is awesome. Surprised you didn’t try there first.

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For all of you who have replied and indicated an interest in my problem, how about this; after wiping my hard drive 6 times with Wipe Drive Pro, and formating AND a clean install, It still won’t run after installed. I GIVE UP!

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For all of you who have replied and indicated an interest in my problem, how about this; after wiping my hard drive 6 times with Wipe Drive Pro, and formating AND a clean install, It still won’t run after installed. I GIVE UP!

Did you contact MBAM support as I suggested? They fixed it for me. I did not have to do a wipe. I just uninstalled and then downloaded from a link they gave me.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/support/consumer

or you can get fast support thru their Facebook page or Twitter @Malwarebytes

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Did you contact MBAM support as I suggested? They fixed it for me. I did not have to do a wipe. I just uninstalled and then downloaded from a link they gave me.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/support/consumer

or you can get fast support thru their Facebook page or Twitter @Malwarebytes

Yes I contacted their tech support and had a merry go round with try this, ooops, then try this. Then when something appeared to work they wanted logs of everything on my computer. SORRY, that ain’t gonna happen. I have sensitive customer documents that I am intrusted with and I’m not about to jeopardize that for a stupid program which I am more and more believing, I DON”T NEED. Thanks for your concern and suggestion, but at this point, like I said, it ain’t worth the aggravation.:mad:

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Yes I contacted their tech support and had a merry go round with try this, ooops, then try this. Then when something appeared to work they wanted logs of everything on my computer. SORRY, that ain’t gonna happen. I have sensitive customer documents that I am intrusted with and I’m not about to jeopardize that for a stupid program which I am more and more believing, I DON”T NEED. Thanks for your concern and suggestion, but at this point, like I said, it ain’t worth the aggravation.:mad:

Wow, It worked so simply for me. Sorry to hear of your troubles. You might have said earlier, but I don’t remember, are you using the free or Pro version?

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Just for the record, there is no incompatibility between Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes Free on Windows XP Professional SP3 in my experience with this combination. There must be some other cause of this issue. And if the hard drive was wiped and Win XP Pro SP3 was reinstalled with all current Microsoft Updates, there would be no malware present at that time. Let alone after wiping the drive six times!

I run Windows XP Professional SP3 on a Pentium 4-M laptop (not a very modern computer). The Windows was originally OEM, but I have completely overhauled many of its drivers. I had already been running Malwarebytes Free before installing Microsoft Security Essentials. I have never had a problem installing or running Malwarebytes Free alongside MSE (Version 2).

So I cannot agree that malware is blocking the operation or installation of Malwarebytes on this computer (in this thread). And I cannot agree that Malwarebytes is conflicting with MSE-2 on this computer. Which leaves the possibility that the Windows version on the computer may be OEM (modified). Or that some driver or hardware setting is blocking the installation of Malwarebytes (not likely). With no third-party firewall present, these are the only two other possibilities which come to mind.

Beyond these possibilities, I do not understand why Malwarebytes would not install and update and run on a Windows XP Professional SP3 computer with MSE installed.

-- rc primak

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