Jump to content

Welcome to Geeks to Go - Register now for FREE

Need help with your computer or device? Want to learn new tech skills? You're in the right place!
Geeks to Go is a friendly community of tech experts who can solve any problem you have. Just create a free account and post your question. Our volunteers will reply quickly and guide you through the steps. Don't let tech troubles stop you. Join Geeks to Go now and get the support you need!

How it Works Create Account
Photo

Explosion of Tmp files in windows\system32


  • Please log in to reply

#1
janninparis

janninparis

    New Member

  • Member
  • Pip
  • 1 posts
I'd be very grateful for help.

A week ago my otherwise happy-to-date Thinkpad Windows XP with all updated patches, up-to-date Norton Virus, and a firewall turned up pretty high (but not upgraded to SP 2) announced at startup that I had an Explorer.exe error, unable to locate component: uxtheme.dll was not found. Spybots and Adawares (and XP cleanmgr recently run) showed nothing problematic.

I restored to a point a week before that. My computer worked normally again.

Suspecting a virus, trojan, or worm might have caused the crash, I tried to run a Panda on-line scan in addition to the Norton resident scan. It crashed out the first time, so I opened up my firewall somewhat to let the ActiveX scans run.

Something strange happened. I could see the scan hanging at the 244th file scanned. I could see my disk going on actively doing something. Was it scanning but not showing the scan? I didn't stop it, close down the internet connection, but within an hour or so I could see that my disk space available had gone from about 6.5 Gigs of a 40 Gig hard drive to under a gigabyte--700 mg even!

I took some music off Itunes and spent the work week getting unhappy disk-full complaints. Otherwise the computer ran fine.

Weekend came with time to spare, so last night I ran a disk search including hidden files and located all the files modified since 3 Oct. There were thousands of temp files in c:\windows\system32. I google-searched to see if anyone else had had similar problems and located one case on the Ccleaner forum and another on Geeks to Go that sounded vaguely similar.

I downloaded and ran the Cclean program which seems great. But it didn't get rid of any of these temp files. Neither does cleanmgr on Windows. Windows Antispy didn't find anything new. CW Shredder didn't either. New updated runs of Spybot and Ad-aware turned up nothing new. But obviously there were still all the temp files clogging my drive.

How to get rid of them? A program called System Cleaner made by Pointstone claims to do so but seems suspicious, and user reviews are awful.

I'm fearful of Killbox -- it seems rather draconian to use with *.tmp.

After reading around about tmp files, it sounded like I could delete the temp files, so I set out to do so manually. I've deleted about 1/3: nearly 10K of the temp files (2 gigs). I've done this in Safe mode. The files seem quite gone after a few boots. HOURS later, I'm fed up with manual deleting. (Will I regret that I haven't copied them to a CD?)

So here are my questions: is there a way to configure Ccleaner to get these? (I haven't used the part that alters your Windows Registry because it didn't seem relevant to the tmp file problem--and I couldn't see any restore/backup point).

Is there some other way to get these or some reliable utility that will zap them, let me move them to a zip file until I'm sure they really are irrelevant?

Is there any way to know what put these there? (I've run all kinds of google searches looking for similar cases but I wind up swimming in accounts of viruses that I don't have and that aren't similar. There's no error message that I can use to delimit the search. "windows/system32" and "tmp files" or "thousands of temp files" doesn't do the trick!).

Has anyone ever heard of anything like this--an attack while one's firewall was somewhat lowered while trying to use an on-line scan?

Is there anything else I need to clean out besides the temp files?

Currently I have no UNHIDDEN temp files on my computer, but there are a couple of old .tmp files in windows/system32 that date from earlier moments, one a file called config.tmp that is from (!) 2001, 3 years before this computer, but maybe it migrated over from the person who configured this computer from the thinkpad that preceded it. There's also a file called oldifi.tmp that seems to date from last January (there was no crash in january, only one previous glitch which was when my sound drivers got unstable back in July).

All the temp files, by the way, are things like 24B6.tmp or FFE.tmp or 4402.tmp. They each have an identical 340 KB and all seem to have arrived on my disk in the same 10 minutes on Monday 3 October. They take up currently about 5 gigs of space in over 15,000 files under windows/system32. I've probably manually erased 5000-10,000 already, but that took hours.

Hijack this log is below. Hope I did it right--never created one before!

Hope that this is clear enough that someone can help.

I'd be very grateful. I'll be away-from-computer as of an hour from now for a few hours, and back around 18:00 EST. I've posted a version of this in Ccleaner Forum as well. I hope it was okay to double-post. I'm fairly desperate to get my computer working normally and out of this instabilty. Even with backups extant, the time lost is a huge hassle at the beginning of the academic year when I need to be writing lectures and conference papers and letters of recommedation.

Many thanks in advance for your help. All the best. Janninparis

Logfile of HijackThis v1.99.1
Scan saved at 11:59:04 PM, on 10/7/2005
Platform: Windows XP SP1 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP1 (6.00.2800.1106)

Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\ibmpmsvc.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\Ati2evxx.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\S24EvMon.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccSetMgr.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\Ati2evxx.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\SNDSrvc.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccEvtMgr.exe
C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPLpr.exe
C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\ThinkPad\PkgMgr\HOTKEY\TPHKMGR.exe
C:\Program Files\ThinkPad\PkgMgr\HOTKEY\TPONSCR.exe
C:\Program Files\ThinkPad\PkgMgr\HOTKEY_1\TpScrex.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\ThinkPad\UTILIT~1\EzEjMnAp.Exe
C:\WINDOWS\AGRSMMSG.exe
C:\Program Files\Support.com\bin\tgcmd.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccApp.exe
C:\Program Files\IBM\Messages By IBM\ibmmessages.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\dla\tfswctrl.exe
C:\Program Files\ThinkPad\ConnectUtilities\QCWLICON.EXE
C:\PROGRA~1\Wanadoo\CnxMon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\Wanadoo\TaskbarIcon.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Real\Update_OB\realsched.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\Maxtor\OneTouch\Utils\OneTouch.exe
C:\WINDOWS\MXOALDR.EXE
C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunesHelper.exe
C:\Program Files\QuickTime\qttask.exe
C:\Program Files\Analog Devices\SoundMAX\SMax4PNP.exe
C:\Program Files\Analog Devices\SoundMAX\Smax4.exe
C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
C:\Program Files\InterVideo\Common\Bin\WinCinemaMgr.exe
C:\Program Files\WinZip\WZQKPICK.EXE
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccProxy.exe
C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\navapsvc.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\QCONSVC.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\System32\RegSrvc.exe
C:\Program Files\Dantz\Retrospect\retrorun.exe
C:\Program Files\Analog Devices\SoundMAX\SMAgent.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\CCPD-LC\symlcsvc.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\TpKmpSVC.exe
C:\Program Files\iPod\bin\iPodService.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\wuauclt.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\Program Files\Wanadoo\EspaceWanadoo.exe
C:\Program Files\Wanadoo\ComComp.exe
C:\Program Files\Wanadoo\Watch.exe
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
C:\Documents and Settings\jann matlock\Desktop\HijackThis.exe

R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Bar = http://us.rd.yahoo.c.../search/ie.html
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://us.rd.yahoo.c...//www.yahoo.com
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://www.wanadoo.fr/
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Window Title = Wanadoo
O2 - BHO: Yahoo! Companion BHO - {02478D38-C3F9-4efb-9B51-7695ECA05670} - C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Companion\Installs\cpn0\ycomp5_5_7_0.dll
O2 - BHO: AcroIEHlprObj Class - {06849E9F-C8D7-4D59-B87D-784B7D6BE0B3} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\ActiveX\AcroIEHelper.dll
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {53707962-6F74-2D53-2644-206D7942484F} - C:\PROGRA~1\SPYBOT~1\SDHelper.dll
O2 - BHO: DriveLetterAccess - {5CA3D70E-1895-11CF-8E15-001234567890} - C:\WINDOWS\system32\dla\tfswshx.dll
O2 - BHO: CNisExtBho Class - {9ECB9560-04F9-4bbc-943D-298DDF1699E1} - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\AdBlocking\NISShExt.dll
O2 - BHO: CNavExtBho Class - {BDF3E430-B101-42AD-A544-FADC6B084872} - C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\NavShExt.dll
O3 - Toolbar: &Radio - {8E718888-423F-11D2-876E-00A0C9082467} - C:\WINDOWS\System32\msdxm.ocx
O3 - Toolbar: Norton AntiVirus - {42CDD1BF-3FFB-4238-8AD1-7859DF00B1D6} - C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\NavShExt.dll
O3 - Toolbar: Web assistant - {0B53EAC3-8D69-4b9e-9B19-A37C9A5676A7} - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\AdBlocking\NISShExt.dll
O3 - Toolbar: Yahoo! Companion - {EF99BD32-C1FB-11D2-892F-0090271D4F88} - C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Companion\Installs\cpn0\ycomp5_5_7_0.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [S3TRAY2] S3Tray2.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SynTPLpr] C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPLpr.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SynTPEnh] C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [BluetoothAuthenticationAgent] rundll32.exe irprops.cpl,,BluetoothAuthenticationAgent
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TpShocks] TpShocks.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TPHOTKEY] C:\PROGRA~1\ThinkPad\PkgMgr\HOTKEY\TPHKMGR.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [BMMLREF] C:\Program Files\ThinkPad\Utilities\BMMLREF.EXE
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TPKMAPHELPER] C:\Program Files\ThinkPad\Utilities\TpKmapAp.exe -helper
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TP4EX] tp4ex.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [EZEJMNAP] C:\PROGRA~1\ThinkPad\UTILIT~1\EzEjMnAp.Exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AGRSMMSG] AGRSMMSG.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [ATIPTA] C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI Control Panel\atiptaxx.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [ATIModeChange] Ati2mdxx.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [UC_Start] C:\IBMTools\Updater\ucstartup.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [tgcmd] "C:\Program Files\Support.com\bin\tgcmd.exe" /server
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [ccApp] "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccApp.exe"
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [ccRegVfy] "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccRegVfy.exe"
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [ibmmessages] C:\Program Files\IBM\Messages By IBM\ibmmessages.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [UpdateManager] "c:\Program Files\Common Files\Sonic\Update Manager\sgtray.exe" /r
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [dla] C:\WINDOWS\system32\dla\tfswctrl.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [QCWLICON] C:\Program Files\ThinkPad\ConnectUtilities\QCWLICON.EXE
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [WooCnxMon] C:\PROGRA~1\Wanadoo\CnxMon.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [WOOWATCH] C:\PROGRA~1\Wanadoo\Watch.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [WOOTASKBARICON] C:\PROGRA~1\Wanadoo\TaskbarIcon.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TkBellExe] "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Real\Update_OB\realsched.exe" -osboot
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [MaxtorOneTouch] C:\PROGRA~1\Maxtor\OneTouch\Utils\OneTouch.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [MXO Auto Loader] C:\WINDOWS\MXOALDR.EXE
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [iTunesHelper] C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunesHelper.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [QuickTime Task] "C:\Program Files\QuickTime\qttask.exe" -atboottime
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Symantec NetDriver Monitor] C:\PROGRA~1\SYMNET~1\SNDMon.exe /Consumer
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SSC_UserPrompt] C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\Security Center\UsrPrmpt.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SoundMAXPnP] C:\Program Files\Analog Devices\SoundMAX\SMax4PNP.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SoundMAX] "C:\Program Files\Analog Devices\SoundMAX\Smax4.exe" /tray
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [MSMSGS] "C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe" /background
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [ibmmessages] C:\Program Files\IBM\Messages By IBM\ibmmessages.exe
O4 - Global Startup: Adobe Reader Speed Launch.lnk = C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\reader_sl.exe
O4 - Global Startup: InterVideo WinCinema Manager.lnk = C:\Program Files\InterVideo\Common\Bin\WinCinemaMgr.exe
O4 - Global Startup: WinZip Quick Pick.lnk = C:\Program Files\WinZip\WZQKPICK.EXE
O9 - Extra button: Wanadoo - {1462651F-F4BA-4C76-A001-C4284D0FE16E} - http://www.wanadoo.fr (file missing) (HKCU)
O11 - Options group: [JAVA_IBM] Java (IBM)
O16 - DPF: {17492023-C23A-453E-A040-C7C580BBF700} (Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool) - http://go.microsoft....k/?linkid=39204
O16 - DPF: {2BC66F54-93A8-11D3-BEB6-00105AA9B6AE} (Symantec AntiVirus scanner) - http://security.syma...bin/AvSniff.cab
O16 - DPF: {644E432F-49D3-41A1-8DD5-E099162EEEC5} (Symantec RuFSI Utility Class) - http://security.syma...n/bin/cabsa.cab
O16 - DPF: {6E32070A-766D-4EE6-879C-DC1FA91D2FC3} (MUWebControl Class) - http://update.micros...b?1124038955380
O16 - DPF: {74FFE28D-2378-11D5-990C-006094235084} (IBM Access Support) - http://www-307.ibm.c...rt/IbmEgath.cab
O16 - DPF: {C2FCEF52-ACE9-11D3-BEBD-00105AA9B6AE} (Symantec RuFSI Registry Information Class) - http://security.syma...n/bin/cabsa.cab
O17 - HKLM\System\CCS\Services\Tcpip\..\{14455029-4632-4ED0-BB92-7CBB8EC0A2D2}: NameServer = 80.10.246.130 80.10.246.3
O17 - HKLM\System\CS1\Services\Tcpip\..\{14455029-4632-4ED0-BB92-7CBB8EC0A2D2}: NameServer = 80.10.246.130 80.10.246.3
O23 - Service: Ati HotKey Poller - Unknown owner - C:\WINDOWS\System32\Ati2evxx.exe
O23 - Service: Symantec Event Manager (ccEvtMgr) - Symantec Corporation - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccEvtMgr.exe
O23 - Service: Symantec Network Proxy (ccProxy) - Symantec Corporation - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccProxy.exe
O23 - Service: Symantec Password Validation (ccPwdSvc) - Symantec Corporation - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccPwdSvc.exe
O23 - Service: Symantec Settings Manager (ccSetMgr) - Symantec Corporation - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccSetMgr.exe
O23 - Service: IBM PM Service (IBMPMSVC) - Unknown owner - C:\WINDOWS\System32\ibmpmsvc.exe
O23 - Service: iPod Service (iPodService) - Apple Computer, Inc. - C:\Program Files\iPod\bin\iPodService.exe
O23 - Service: Norton AntiVirus Auto Protect Service (navapsvc) - Symantec Corporation - C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\navapsvc.exe
O23 - Service: QCONSVC - IBM Corp. - C:\WINDOWS\System32\QCONSVC.EXE
O23 - Service: RegSrvc - Intel Corporation - C:\WINDOWS\System32\RegSrvc.exe
O23 - Service: Retrospect Launcher (RetroLauncher) - Dantz Development Corporation - C:\Program Files\Dantz\Retrospect\retrorun.exe
O23 - Service: Spectrum24 Event Monitor (S24EventMonitor) - Intel Corporation - C:\WINDOWS\System32\S24EvMon.exe
O23 - Service: ScriptBlocking Service (SBService) - Symantec Corporation - C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\SYMANT~1\SCRIPT~1\SBServ.exe
O23 - Service: Symantec Network Drivers Service (SNDSrvc) - Symantec Corporation - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\SNDSrvc.exe
O23 - Service: SoundMAX Agent Service (SoundMAX Agent Service (default)) - Analog Devices, Inc. - C:\Program Files\Analog Devices\SoundMAX\SMAgent.exe
O23 - Service: Symantec Core LC - Symantec Corporation - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\CCPD-LC\symlcsvc.exe
O23 - Service: SymWMI Service (SymWSC) - Symantec Corporation - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\Security Center\SymWSC.exe
O23 - Service: IBM KCU Service (TpKmpSVC) - Unknown owner - C:\WINDOWS\system32\TpKmpSVC.exe
  • 0

Advertisements







Similar Topics

0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users

As Featured On:

Microsoft Yahoo BBC MSN PC Magazine Washington Post HP