Solved New and odd systray icon

[OvenMaster]

I found this icon in my systray this evening when rebooting after installing Flash updates for both Firefox and IE. After my HDD settled down, it vanished, and it didn't show up in my Customization area, or anywhere else. Device Manager doesn't show any new devices. My PC seems to work fine.

Does anyone know what this indicates, besides something that's temporarily not working?

 

[gregrocker]

Put your mouse on it to see if it reveals what it is, if not click or right click on it to see what it offers as these are made to be clickable. It looks like either a brightness control or connection manager with the waves coming off it. I've not seen that one before.

Meanwhile scour your Control Panel>Programs for anything you don't want and didn't install. If you order it by date it may be immediately obvious so you can uninstall it.

Next download, install, decline trial, update and run full Malwarebytes and SUPERAntiSpyware - Downloads
scans.

Report back all steps' findings.

 

[Callender]

Suggestion

Does anything similar show up if you?

Right click Start then choose Properties > Taskbar > Notification Area > Customise

Scroll down the list and see if you spot the icon.

Edit: Reading your post I reckon that you've done that already!

To me the icon looks like some sort of display brightness control is switched off warning. But if it's vanished it will be hard to track down exactly what it was.

 

[Callender]

Suggestion

If all else fails you can try running software to find icons but be warned that scanning an entire hard drive will produce a list of thousands of icons that you'll need to inspect.

Scan for icons:

​

Sample Results:

​

You will see the file path if you can spot the icon.

Software needed:

IconsExtract - Extract icon/cursor stored in EXE, DLL, OCX, CPL files - Portable version is best.

 

[OvenMaster]

Thanks to the both of you.
Greg, I'll run both scans right now.
Callender, I'll run that program right after the malware scans.
I'll report back when I'm done, most likely in the morning (it's nearly 2am for me).
I've also scoured Event Viewer for anything out of the ordinary at that time. No joy.

 

[Wandering one]

Looks like WI-FI missing driver. Art.

 

[OvenMaster]

Malwarebytes scan results:

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
www.malwarebytes.org

Scan Date: 11/2/2014
Scan Time: 1:42:02 AM
Logfile: mbam.txt
Administrator: Yes

Version: 2.00.3.1025
Malware Database: v2014.11.02.02
Rootkit Database: v2014.11.01.02
License: Free
Malware Protection: Disabled
Malicious Website Protection: Disabled
Self-protection: Disabled

OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1
CPU: x86
File System: NTFS
User: user

Scan Type: Custom Scan
Result: Completed
Objects Scanned: 461123
Time Elapsed: 1192 hr, 57 min, 50 sec

Memory: Enabled
Startup: Enabled
Filesystem: Enabled
Archives: Enabled
Rootkits: Enabled
Heuristics: Enabled
PUP: Enabled
PUM: Enabled

Processes: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Modules: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Keys: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Values: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Data: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Folders: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Files: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Physical Sectors: 0
(No malicious items detected)


(end)

 

[OvenMaster]

SuperAntiSpyware results. Tried it with ScanBoost off, and then on.
Never had this happen before in all my years of using SAS.

 

[OvenMaster]

Avast! full system scan results.

 

[OvenMaster]

Looks like WI-FI missing driver. Art.

Which is definitely odd, because my machine has only ever been networked with a wired Linksys router.

 

[gregrocker]

Can't read the Status reports on the right side of Avast scan. Try SAS again. Will it clean up what it finds?

What does the icon say when you hover on it, left or right click?

Please report back results of every step I gave as these would almost always resolve it.

 

[OvenMaster]

Whoops. Sorry, Greg. Didn't scroll down on the Avast report. Fixed.
When the icon did appear, clicking or hovering had no response.
It's not showing in my Control Panel at all.
I've tried SAS three times. Crashed three times. All I can do is click Report or Cancel. After that, it's Stop or Cancel. No other error message shows up.
I've found one log that is dated today. The number of files is far too low to be accurate.

SUPERAntiSpyware Scan Log
http://www.superantispyware.com

Generated 11/02/2014 at 09:30 AM

Application Version : 6.0.1158
Database Version : 11586

Scan type       : Custom Scan
Total Scan Time : 00:02:38

Operating System Information
Windows 7 Professional 32-bit, Service Pack 1 (Build 6.01.7601)
UAC Off - Administrator

Memory items scanned      : 686
Memory threats detected   : 0
Registry items scanned    : 37475
Registry threats detected : 0
File items scanned        : 6177
File threats detected     : 0

============
 End of Log 
============

I'm presently looking through the 24,846 icons that IconsExtract show on my C drive.

 

[OvenMaster]

The closest one I can find is "netshell.dll(1612)", which as Wandering one says, has to do with wireless networking.
It's amazing how many icons in Win 7 are simply reused and taken from Win 9x and XP. Digital VAX, Lotus 1-2-3 or Borland Reflex, anyone?

Now to figure out why SuperAntiSpyware is crashing.

 

[Callender]

SuperAntiSpyware crash

There's an option to include "scan with SAS" in the right click context menu. You could try disabling that.

If that doesn't work you could try a reset.

 

[OvenMaster]

Enabling right-clicking in Explorer is not ticked/checked.
I'll have to try a reset and failing that, uninstall and reinstall the program.

 

[Callender]

SAS removal

When I needed to reinstall SAS the uninstall didn't clean everything. Check for these remnants and remove them if found.

Needed to stop and then delete the service:

"C:\Program Files\SUPERAntiSpyware\SASCORE64.EXE"

Service Name: !SASCORE

Command line used to delete:

sc delete !SASCORE

And uninstall drivers:

C:\Program Files\SUPERAntiSpyware\SASKUTIL64.SYS

C:\Program Files\SUPERAntiSpyware\SASDIFSV64.SYS

Then SAS could be fully removed.

 

[gregrocker]

Try resetting the Notification area icons to Default to see if it goes away. If not see exactly what is listed for it and disable the listing. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/13102-notification-area-icons-reset.html

Then we'll need to find the folder and/or reg key which contains these so it can be further traced and deleted.

 

[Berton]

Looks like WI-FI missing driver. Art.

Which is definitely odd, because my machine has only ever been networked with a wired Linksys router.

Look in Control Panel, Device Manager, Network devices, lately some Desktops have come with both a wired adapter and a wireless adapter.

 

[OvenMaster]

When I needed to reinstall SAS the uninstall didn't clean everything. Check for these remnants and remove them if found.

Needed to stop and then delete the service:

"C:\Program Files\SUPERAntiSpyware\SASCORE64.EXE"

Service Name: !SASCORE

Command line used to delete:

sc delete !SASCORE

And uninstall drivers:

C:\Program Files\SUPERAntiSpyware\SASKUTIL64.SYS

C:\Program Files\SUPERAntiSpyware\SASDIFSV64.SYS

Then SAS could be fully removed.

View attachment 339145

After uninstalling SAS, none of those files exist, nor does !SASCORE show up in Services.

 

[OvenMaster]

Looks like WI-FI missing driver. Art.

Which is definitely odd, because my machine has only ever been networked with a wired Linksys router.

Look in Control Panel, Device Manager, Network devices, lately some Desktops have come with both a wired adapter and a wireless adapter.

I looked. All that shows is my Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller, which is embedded on my board.