Weird characters in HKCU getting created on every reboot?!?

romulus88 · 03 Mar 2013

Hello,

I'm running Win 7 64 bit, and I've had no problems with anything and it's very stable. However it's been a while since I installed it and as always with windows, some things begin to crop up.

I have noticed that on every bootup, I get weird keys created in the HKCU registry, that look like this:

€ and •[

Here's a screen shot:

What could that be? I tried creating RegMon filters and doing bootup detection. I couldn't find anything that creates those entries. I have the latest version of Avira AntiVir installed and running at all times. This is a little bothersome to me.

Ztruker · 03 Mar 2013

What shows in the right screen if you click on them, anything that could help id them?

romulus88 · 03 Mar 2013

Ztruker said:

What shows in the right screen if you click on them, anything that could help id them?

Absolutely nothing. There are no values getting written at all. Just these key names. When I delete them, they reappear after a log off or reboot and they're different every time.

romulus88 · 04 Mar 2013

Any ideas?

Ztruker · 04 Mar 2013

I really don't have any good ideas other than doing a scan with Avira and Malware Bytes Anti Malware (free).

About the only way I can think to narrow this down would take a lot of time and reboots, but basically you do a Clean Boot and check for the keys. If not there then you start enabling things a few at a time and checking after each reboot.

How to perform a clean boot to troubleshoot a problem in Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8

VistaKing · 04 Mar 2013

Have you tried running a scan for viruses ? Also can ou upload a PrntScrn of the StartUp tab inside msconfig

Tip

click on

type in msconfig and press Enter if you get a User Account Control window click on Yes once System Configuration window opens up click on the Startup tab press Alt and PrntScrn or use the Snipping Tool

romulus88 · 04 Mar 2013

Ztruker said:

I really don't have any good ideas other than doing a scan with Avira and Malware Bytes Anti Malware (free).

About the only way I can think to narrow this down would take a lot of time and reboots, but basically you do a Clean Boot and check for the keys. If not there then you start enabling things a few at a time and checking after each reboot.

How to perform a clean boot to troubleshoot a problem in Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8

That's a superb idea! Will post back with results!

romulus88 · 04 Mar 2013

VistaKing said:

Have you tried running a scan for viruses ? Also can ou upload a PrntScrn of the StartUp tab inside msconfig

Tip

click on

type in msconfig and press Enter if you get a User Account Control window click on Yes once System Configuration window opens up click on the Startup tab press Alt and PrntScrn or use the Snipping Tool

I have Avira running at all times and did manual scanning with it of the entire system. I have also done Malware Bytes scan. All negative.

Layback Bear · 04 Mar 2013

I have never seen so many start up programs on one computer at one time in my life.

Weird characters in HKCU getting created on every reboot?!?-msconfig-start-up.png

Take a look at #7 and #8

Optimize Windows 7

romulus88 · 04 Mar 2013

Layback Bear said:

I have never seen so many start up programs on one computer at one time in my life.

I know and notice how most of these aren't even optional. I turned SO many off that I don't use. I'm an advanced user, but going back to older OSes, I don't remember so much bloat being forced on a user.

Half of these are hardware drivers. The other half is from Adobe

And I need everything that's starting up. I have a good CPU and ram, it's actually a gaming rig. So I don't have any slowdowns. Just the weird crap registry keys. There are a few Unicode programs I have installed for translations. I'll try uninstalling these.