This program has been damaged, possibly by a bad sector of the hard drive or a virus.

[Shadracker]

I love using Spyblaster. It is a great program, but recently when I try to run the program I get the following message: "This program has been damaged, possibly by a bad sector of the hard drive or a virus. Please reinstall it". I have un-installed the program, downloaded a new program from the Spyblaster website and re-installed it. I ran Norton and AVG anti-virus program and found nothing. I ran Ad-Aware and Spyware Nuker and still no luck... Any thoughts on what could be causing Spyblaster not to run..?

[snowbound]

Hi Shadracker

Welcome to Wilders.

Extensive thread on the subject here,

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=26534

I would also advise u to uninstall Spyware Nuker. It is a very questionable app.

Look here,

http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/

Hope this helps.


snowbound

Hi,

I was able to fix this on my PC by running the cleaner on here:

http://www.rokop-security.de/main/article.php?sid=746

mentioned in this thread

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?boa...art=0#lastPost


Hope this helps.

Hi, Team ~smile~

I miss my Spywareblaster ~sad face~

I get the message above, every time I try to install 3.1
I run Windows 98SE

I would know if I had cool www search ratdung, wouldn't I?
It would hijack my browser, yes?
or
I would see 'about blank' appear as my homepage, yes?
or
I would have something, anything, in 'software environment - system hooks' yes?
(it's empty)

However, I did find logk.dll and winnt32.exe in MRU DocFind in my registry...
however..this was my anti-virus badguy list, I believe (what does 'AB' mean as the start for each of the registry keys in there?...I've seen this 'AB' in many of my registry locations)

~sigh~

I miss you, SpywareBlaster
(waiting patiently and devotedly for 3.2, hoping that will solve the installation problem)

[jonb]

hi,

i have basically the same problem of not able to install spyware blaster with very similar situations, and been hunting the net for answers.

i found it earlier today on another site and now spyware blaster 3.1 is INSTALLED with no problem. the answer was that i did have an "hidden" virus. and guess what, after deleting the hidden virus, my spyware guard now is working too.

anyway, just do a google search on "about:blank worm help!!!" and this will being u to the thread (from the experts-exchange.com forum). 3/4 the way down the thread is the answer.

i pasted some of the info from that thread... see below (and good luck):

*******************************************

Comment from dcobian
Date: 05/03/2004 10:33AM PDT
Comment


Hey Everyone!

I had this problem for about 2 weeks; nothing seemed to work, after a few days I will get the virus again.
Finally I found the proper way to get rid of this virus.
The key is to find the hidden DLL, since there are two, one will be modifying your internet explorer pages and resetting them to about: blank, the other is hidden and loaded at all times, first you need this program:

http://www.resplendence.com/download/reglite.exe

Open reglite and paste this value in the address bar:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\\AppInit_DLLs

Then double click:
AppInit_DLLs

You should be able to see a file with this address:

C:\Windows\System32\"Hidden".dll

Clean your system with all the previous anti-virus programs.

Reboot Windows

Then in to the windows console (Windows set up option) go to C:\Windows\System32, there modify the file by using the Attrib command, otherwise you won't be able to delete it, another way you could, is to change the name of the file.
Reboot your system and open reglite again, go back to the same key:
AppInit_DLLs,
Now delete the whole value.

That should do the trick


Comment from tanka_zsolt
Date: 05/07/2004 03:18PM PDT
Comment


To dcobian or anyone can help,
I renamed the hexadecimally encrypted dll file and rebooted as you told above. But I cannot delete the registry value AppInit_DLLs by reglite nor regedit. I deleted but it's back in the moment. Can anyone help me?

Thank's a lot.

Comment from IZING
Date: 05/07/2004 03:26PM PDT
Author Comment


Make sure you delete it in Safemode.

Hope this helps.

iz.

Comment from dcobian
Date: 05/07/2004 05:20PM PDT
Comment


The file should be deleted or renamed before windows loads, by accessing the windows xp console, you could by using your windows xp installation CD or by running msconfig and reloading the original boot.ini file, then restart windows and you should see an option to load either windows or windows setup, after loading windows setup follow the instructions for repair, then you will be able to access the DOS prompt, where you should be able to access the file, just remember to modify the file attributes, if you are not familiar with the commands, type help to see how to change attributes in DOS.
Rename the file or delete it, then reboot as usual, after that go to the registry and delete the Windows/System32 reference to that file.

Safe mode will not allow you to delete it nor to find it.

dcobian

******************************************************

Thankyou kindly for your effort, jonb.....but...I don't have AppInit_DLLs under that registry path, and a 'find' doesn't find it anywhere else in my registry

Surely, if I had a nasty, it would re-direct my browser, or drown me in popups? (I get none)

~going into SpywareBlaster withdrawal symptoms~

To dcobian:

THANK YOU!!!!! It's been three days of slogging. Your solution worked perfectly. Key is windows console booted from CD in order to be able to modify the dll (and also remembering DOS syntax for the REN command..;-)
I found I did not need to be in safe mode in order to delete the renamed dll via reglite.

Thanks a lot, I've suspected I had something for a few weeks now but AV and spyware scans were coming up with nothing. My memory usage was over 200MB with nothing running on W2K Pro, I know MS is bad but not that bad, it's down to 90MB now with it removed.

Just out of curiosity does anybody now what this bad boy does to take up all that memory ? I've had a quick look through my proxy and firewall logs and haven't spotted anything out of the ordinary yet, and only one of the other machines around the LAN seems to have been infected.

[bobhardyoyo]

You need to run Ad Aware with the latest updates then immediately install the fix from this site http://www.rokop-security.de/main/article.php?sid=746 run the patch and the once it has finished you should be able to run spyware blaster again.

[MICRO]

Originally Posted by Veronika

Thankyou kindly for your effort, jonb.....but...I don't have AppInit_DLLs under that registry path, and a 'find' doesn't find it anywhere else in my registry

Surely, if I had a nasty, it would re-direct my browser, or drown me in popups? (I get none)

~going into SpywareBlaster withdrawal symptoms~

Veronika,
If you are still here around.

I have 98se's and no problems with either SB or SG.
Googled 'AB Registry Keys' and they have several refs.

Did you run Trend Micro's\Housecall free scan over your machine ?, and Hijack This ?

I think you will find there is something on your 98,
rather than a prob. with 3.1.

Regards.

[bobhardyoyo]

Hi

It may well be that the main part of the browser hijack has been cleared but there is still a file or registry entry that is interferring with spyware blaster. Try running the fix detailed in my previous post.

Hope this helps

Me