Is this spyware??

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Running Windows 2000, IE 6.0.

I noticed yesterday that my system was running r-e-a-l-l-y slow so I thought I’d do a good cleaning. I deleted cookies, regular temp files and tried to clean out all of the temporary internet files (which was huge) ((disk clean up not working!). There is a large amount of tempory internet files that I can’t delete, can’t view, can’t copy and can’t rename. They are really bizarre and I wondered if anyone could advise me if this is something nasty or just a bunch of innocuous files. I’ve taken a screen shot and pasted it into a WORD document so you can see these bizarre things!

Appreciate any feedback!

Deb

Edit: the majority of these files (98%) are .jpg’s apparently. The one I have hi-lighted in the screen shot just happens to be a .bin file

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The .bin file extension implies “binary” or “executable.” That’s not typical of most web pages, but may be related to an ActiveX control that does something useful for you. Do the file dates aid in reconstructing what they might be from? Normally the date columns are available at the top level (Temporary Internet Files); I’m not sure how you are seeing the folder you’re seeing, unless it is for a different user.

Added: It might be helpful to open Tools>Folder Options…, View tab, and display the full path in the address bar so it is always clear whose TIF you are viewing.

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Thanks for the reply.

The dates are all around the beginning of September of this year. Interestingly enough, I just went to one of the file folders and looked again at these kooky files. When I click them one at a time, the file name is so long and convoluted that is spans the width of my monitor when I hover my mouse over it- all gobbledy-gook. About every fourth or so file, I actually get an image off to the side of explorer and it turns out to be pictures that my daughter has shared with her friends on MSN via Kodak EasyShare – a program I personally dislike and have removed a couple of times around that time frame. So now I’m thinking that this piece of software is responsible for these weird files but unfortunately, I can only remove the occasional one that actually shows the image. The many others remain stubbornly stuck.

Is there a way in DOS to clear out the temporary internet files at all? Apparently doing it manually just isn’t cutting it!

Edit: Hi Ken. Saw your message after I posted – fellow Canadian! I should have mentioned that I have run my spyware programs and have Spyware Blaster running along with another Pest control program. This is in conjunction with the usual virus scanner and firewall. My goodness, I thought I had this computer locked up like Fort Knox but in reality I know that the occasional nasty can still slip in. I’ve even run HiJackThis to see if anything untowards is lurking in the background, but to my semi-kind of-trained eye, I can’t see anything unusual.

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Hi Deb…..again

Do you get any messages popping up when you try to delete the files?
Can you run Windows 2000 in Safe Mode and delete them?
Can you re-install (temporarily) the Easy Share program and use it to delete them?

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fellow Canadian!

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[/indent] and Ontario even!!

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

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Thanks for the suggestions.

No window pops up when I try to delete them; just a “dinging” sound. I have tried removing them in safe mode – no luck. I thought your suggestion was sound regarding re-installing the product but that failed as well. Another interesting feature of this little exercise is that if I right-click one of these files to look at its properties, a window pops up and says “the properties for this item are not available”. Stubborn little critters.

Tonight I have emailed Kodak’s support and told them about the problem. Here’s hoping they have a solution to what is clearly a problem involving their software!

Thanks for your input on this one.

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Hi Deb

Have you run Spybot S&D and/or Adaware?
If not, you can do a search for them in this forum for links and other important info. The are free to download.

Have a Great day!!!
Ken

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My suggestion would be to clean out your TIFs. You can download and run CCleaner and start with a “clean slate”:

“CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. But the best part is that it’s fast (normally taking less that a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! ”

Just take the time to read through the online help, so that you don’t go removing stuff you’d rather keep (autocomplete entries, recently typed URLs for instance). It’s a great, small ware program.

Alan

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Some other things you could try.

• In Internet Explorer, Tools > Internet Options > General > Delete Files…
• Log in as a different user and delete the entire Temporary Internet Files folder tree from the folder Documents and SettingsusernameLocal SettingsTemp (use the username from your normal login)
  [/list]StuartR

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Another program that deletes stubborn files is Dr. Delete. This is a one and done removal and if you are not sure if you need these files (unlikely as it seems) then you might want to try Alan’s suggestion of CCClean first, as that sounds a bit more selective about what it removes.

A quick question about your Disk Cleanup utility. Do you have the box checked to Compress Old Files ??

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Thanks Alan, Stuart and Doc for your suggestions. I will give them a whirl and keep my fingers crossed. Alan, a quick education if you don’t mind; what are tifs exactly? I’m sort of familiar with .tiff files which I believe is another type of picture file (I think). Is this the same thing? Doc, I’m not sure where I would look to check or uncheck compress files when running disk cleanup but when disk cleanup starts, it does say “compressing old files”. Is that what might be causing the problem re: not working?

Edit again: I really should think of everything before I post! Stuart, I’ve never logged into my computer as any one particular user. It justs boots up and tosses me into the fray. How do I go about logging in as another user? I really appreciate everyone’s time and expertise here! Thanks so much.

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In this context, TIF is your Temporary Internet Folder. Try booting into safe mode – press F8 repeatedly while you start your PC, until the boot menu appears. Select Safe Mode, then try to clear or delete The Temporary Internet Files folder.

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Thanks Hans. I feel a bit of a fool for that question now!

Alan, I just ran CCleaner… whoa! It wiped out 306mb of JUNK from my TIF (now that I know that acronym, I’m going to use it!) folder. What a lovely bit of software! I’m going to have some fun using it .

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(Edited by AlanMiller on 09-Oct-05 02:39. And another alternative…)

Good stuff Deb . Sorry I didn’t explain this particular usage of TIF, but I see you got the goods in the end. Yep I particularly like CCleaner and have watched its development from a very simple “privacy tool”, to remove the seemingly indestructible index.dat files, to a really versatile cleanup utility. I find it especially good if there are some sort of problematic files caught up in the browser cache. This thing just nukes the lot.

For my particular situation, being here in the Lounge so much, I find it useful after a TIF clean out, to reload all the smileys back into cache, simply by opening the Smilies panel with the next post I reply to. Entirely optional, but my own preference.

Alan

Edit – And even as we speak, a new kid on the block appears – post 524,545

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I’m not sure where I would look to check or uncheck compress files when running disk cleanup but when disk cleanup starts, it does say “compressing old files”. Is that what might be causing the problem re: not working?

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[/indent]I’m afraid I can only show you where to look, but not the actual box to uncheck (I edited it out of my registry years ago). But if you are interested, I can give you a step-by-step to edit it out of your registry. The problem with this setting is that it compresses files automatically and that will cause Disk Cleanup to take forever to finish it’s work. I think you have to let it finish it’s task and then do the registry edit. What exactly is or isn’t Disk Cleanup doing when you run it ???

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Well, I can’t get as far as your snapshot shows. Mine will start by saying choose the drive to clean ©, then when I press start, it says “compressing old files” with a status bar that never moves beyond, say, two or three bars. Then is seems to freeze up or something. I’ve even walked away and left it alone and come back after 45 minutes and it’s still stuck there. Additionally, the red light on my harddrive isn’t even lit up like I imagine it should be. At first I thought it was because my harddrive is a good size (80 gig) but I would think that it shouldn’t take that long just to figure out which files to compress and move on.

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Sounds like you’ve got that box checked in the window I posted the screenshot of. Here’s the fix. It involves editing the value out of the registry but is pretty simple to do. If you’re not comfortable doing it then I’ll try to post a more concise step-by-step covering every little detail to prevent any mistakes.

Disk Cleanup Hangs
The Disk Cleanup utility frees up space on a volume. To access the utility, open My Computer, right-click the drive you want to work on, click Properties, then select Disk Cleanup from the General tab. If the program hangs the system, the problem is most likely caused by the Disk Cleanup Wizard checking for all files older than 50 days that it can compress. Disabling this behavior might improve the performance. To disable the behavior, perform the following steps:
Start regedit Start>Run> type in “regedit” (without the quotes)
Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerVolumeCachesCompress old files registry subkey by clicking on the + sign next to each of these entries, then select it by left clicking on it once.
From the File menu in the upper left of the screen, select Export.
Enter a filename and location, C:/ Registry – File Exports is good, then click Save.
Now right click on the Compress Old Files entry on the left side of the screen and choose “Delete”
This will delete the “Compress old files” registry subkey.
Backtrack by clicking on the – sign next to the entries you opened and when you’re finished, close the registry editor. That’s it !!

Now cleanmgr.exe will work! You can still compress files manually, but cleanmgr.exe will not have the capacity to automatically compress old files after you make this change.

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Thanks Doc! I followed the instructions you gave to edit the registry and now disk clean up takes about 1 second to get to the screen shot that you took. Even though everything is well and cleaned out now (manually), I imagine any further clean ups should be a breeze now.

Very much appreciate your advice on this additional nuisance for me!

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Glad it worked out !! Your system should run a bit better now (it won’t have to uncompress those files to access them now, no matter how infrequently they are used). You should defrag your hard drive now and then get some of the anti-spyware/adware/malware programs mentioned here to protect you system in the future. Be sure to update each one before you scan your system with it to be certain you have the latest protection. Updates & scans should be run weekly. HTH

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Thanks for the very sound advice Doc. Will do.

I thought I’d close this thread off with the response that I received from Kodak as it is a bit ironic! Keeping in mind that my original problem seemed to stem from TIFs that were created from their software and couldn’t be removed no matter what “normal” method I used and which I described very clearly in my query to them, here is their very polite reply:

“We are quite concerned over your experience, and are sorry for any
inconvenience or frustration this has caused you and look forward to
assisting you further. Your understanding is appreciated.

To clean out the temporary files on your computer and make sure it’s
running at optimum performance will allow you to utilize the use of
KODAK EASYSHARE Software. If you are using Internet Explorer, click on
the “Tools” button at the top of the screen, then click on “Internet
Options.” Deleting temporary files won’t cause you to lose anything
important. This procedure only clears out the text strings that collect
behind the scenes and clutter up your system as you move around the Web”

Umm… I thought that was what I tried in the first place

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> Do you have the box checked to Compress Old Files ??

Doc, is this an option specific to Win2000?

Alan

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Alan,

This is the MS Knowledge Base article regarding XP and this MSMVP article and this thread in another forum indicate that the problem affects 2000 & XP. The ElderGeek shows some XP screenshots that seem to be exactly what Deb is describing.

I am running XP Pro SP 2, fully patched, and I removed the key over 2 years ago. The symptoms sound the same and Deb says that Disk Cleanup stops responding while “Compressing Old Files”. It would seem to follow that it is a problem in both 2000 & XP and the registry edit should fix it. If not, the instructions included exporting the registry key so that things could be restored. Is there something I should know or have left out ???

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> Is there something I should know or have left out ???

Not that I would know about Doc .
It’s the first time I’d heard of the feature, let alone the problem. I was just accordingly curious.

Alan

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