Multipule Explorer.exe using a lot of memory.

Hi again UsernameIssues,

1) I have been using TrendMicro but it has expired. I used to have Norton in the past but TrendMicro made me uninstall it.

2) As long as I keep MSIE closed, it seems explorer.exe sits at about 90-110k. It's strange for the last 20 minutes it has not really increased yet this morning it was going up and down. It is not 'all the time' now.

I have attached what I think is what you are looking to view. Is it?
- Edit, the amount of items listed on the attachment has been drastically reduced maybe by 100 after running WDO.

Thanks a lot,
- Steve

Go ahead and uninstall Symantec's/Norton's LiveUpdate. It runs all of the time and it is not doing you any good.

Also uninstall TrendMicro and install the free MSE for now. Look around MSE's settings and see if you can find the setting where you can tell MSE to only use a certain percentage of the CPU during scans. Change that setting to 10%. Also set MSE to do a quick scan everyday. Let me know if you cannot find these settings.

Have MSE do a full scan.


While MSE is doing a full scan, run Process Explorer that I linked to earlier. Let's see what we can find out about wine255.exe and why it is connecting to an ISP in France. WHOIS Search, Domain Name, Website, and IP Tools - Who.is

Please set Process Explorer to send file hashes to VirusTotal.

Hello again,

I've completed the following;

>Uninstalled TrendMicro but could not find symantec's to uninstall.

>Downloaded and installed MSE. I set the CPU settings to 10% and have it scanning at the moment.

>I also did also run Process Explorer and I've attached my findings. I'm not sure what exactly your looking. I found the WINE255.exe and was able to show the DLLS in the bottom tab. I also looked up the file name on virustool.com here is the results;
https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/3...7117/analysis/

Should I go into the path where I can see wine255.exe and simply just delete it?

Thanks,
-Steve

Deleting a program (even a bad one) is not always the best thing to do for reasons that I'll not bore you with.

Since Malwarebytes found the app to be malicious, let's see if Malwarebytes can get rid of it for you. Install Malwarebytes from here: Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.75 - FileHippo.com




After the install is almost complete - you should see this:



Uncheck that offer and let Malwarebytes update.

Wait for MSE to complete its scan before running Malearebyte's quick scan.

We do want to start with the quick scan to get rid of things that might hamper a full scan.


Go to Programs and Features and make several screenshots to show every program that is installed. You can omit showing any program that you don't want shown to the public.

So, I have malwarebytes downloaded but I'm still waiting on MSE to complete the scan. It's been a little over two and a half hour and still going. Is this normal?

The speed of the scan for MSE is determined by the speed of the hard drive, how much stuff that there is to scan and how many other things that you are doing the on the computer at the same time. I had you set MSE to only use 10% so that you could do other things on the computer (if need be). If you want, you can set that percentage to 100% or to the default of 50%... but the CPU might not be the limiting factor - hard drive speed is probably what will determine the scan time. You can just leave it overnight.

Normally, I would not have had you download/install Malwarebytes while another scan is in progress, but I was going to be away from the forums for a few hours and I wanted you to be ready to move on to the next step in case the MSE scan went quickly. If your laptop had an SSD, the scan might have completed by now.

Another thing that slows scans down:
MSE's default settings will scan inside of compressed files (like zip and cab files). This requires CPU time to unpack those files and check them. (At least I think that is what happens.) And then there are temporary files. I've cleaned up computes that have more than 6GB of temp files. Most of them compressed files left over from past software installations. While it would be quicker if we removed the temp files first, sometimes these temp files offer us insight about malware on the computer.

Understood, I'm letting it go through the process and then will run maleware bytes. Thanks for the explanation.

In the meantime, attached is a list of the installed programs.

Thanks,
-Steve

Thanks for the list of apps.

I would uninstall Core FTP LE - unless you use it.
If you do use it, then consider updating it.

I see that you have SpywareBlaster 4.6 installed. If you are going to use an app like this, then you need to keep it up to date. SpywareBlaster 5.0 has been out for a while now. You will need to manually check for updates a few times each week or buy the software to get automatic updates.

Pando Media Booster is questionable. If you know that you have to have it for a game, them keep it (for now).


Uninstall:
Java 6 Update 31 - if you must have Java, update to the latest.
Ad-Aware Antivirus (it is best to only have one antivirus app installed)
Ad-Aware Browsing Protection
Best Buy PC app
Adobe Reader 10 (install version 11)
Adobe Air (you can put it back if some other app complains that it is gone)

If you have a lot of plugins added to Firefox, the just update Firefox to version 27. If you don't use Firefox much, then consider moving to a 64bit version of Firefox for better security. I use Pale Moon, but there are other good ones too. Or, just uninstall Firefox all together.

I like IE and its security features, but it is very important to keep things like Java and Flash up to date. You might want to consider using Chrome as your default browser because it should update itself and Flash automatically.

I also suggest the people keep two browsers in case one gets hosed:
IE, Firefox, Chrome (pick two

Hi again,

Pando Media and Spyware Blaster have been removed along with not only the list you provided but a handful of programs I have not used within the last 6 months. Core FTP is updated to latest version and I must keep that as I use it on a daily basis.

I don't have many plugins for Frefox but i am downloading Chrome in just a bit and will switch over and try that out.

Thoughts on opera? I use it on another laptop and I like it.

Still waiting for MSE to finish :)

Thanks again,
-Steve

Hi again,

So I ran MSE all night to wake up and have my laptop shut off. I attempted to reboot it but it's just going to the main "asus" screen and before it goes into the windows loading screen. It just auto-resets it self. I've tried to boot it into safe mode but I am unsuccessful with doing that.

I'm trying to get it started, as of now this event has taken a turn for the worse.

Thanks,
- Steve