desktop icons defaced

[topdogo]

all of a sudden the icons on my desktop have what may be a small star burst on each one except for the recycle bin which is completely covered with the burst...has anyone come across this problem before

[Budfred]

Did you change anything around the time that this happened? Did you change themes or wallpaper particularly? Do you run a virus scan regularly or use spyware detectors like AdAware? What version of Windows are you using? Information, we need information!!:D :D
Seriously though, tell us more about what happened and how you are set up so that we can get a better idea of what made the change. It could be as simple as someone changing the way things are displayed if anyone other than you uses the computer.

Budfred

[Paul Komski]

Read HERE (http://www.techadvice.com/w98/I/IconCacheFile-rebuild.htm) about the shelliconcache file and booting into/out of SafeMode.

The M$ Utility TweakUI (http://download.com.com/3000-2341-2830963.html) may also be used - and it could be worth checking your Display settings.

Virus must be excluded. Go to Housecall (http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall/) for a free uptodate online scan if you have no a/v.

[topdogo]

i have windows xp home on that machine and i run norton av updated daily, this happen a couple of days ago and i don't recall anything out of the ordinary. i did restore to last week and that didn't change anything.
today however i started to have boot up problems, as i sent out an email the machine rebooted then after doing a checkdisk and msconfig i removed a program called dw.exe which was a downware program ??? which was using upto 98% of the cpu..this didn't change the icon thing back though and i have no idea where the dw.exe came from unless it's a virus. Something that i have not tried and will try tomorrow will be to add a new icon and see if it shows up on that new icon.

[Budfred]

I would suggest that you run your AV scan at the deepest level that you can and consider downloading and using a spyware scanner. mjc has links to a wide assortment of programs for this at:

http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=15179

One of these sites might be able to tell you what the dw.exe file is.

http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.htm

Good luck,
Budfred

[Paul Komski]

From http://www.cexx.org/adware.htm (about 1/3rd of the way down)

dw.exe, Movie Network.exe (Downloadware / Mediacharger / Movienetworks) - Displays lots of popup ads as you surf; Mediacharger may also function as a dialer for 1-900 #s for billing of adult movie downloads. Check for removal entries in Add/Remove Programs. Some removal instructions (may or may not work?) are here. I have had reports that the program will try to deter uninstallation by telling you that doing so will mess up your browser. It is, however, bluffing.

Hope your phone bill is going to be OK :eek:

[topdogo]

the problem is solved
ran scandisk and defragged hard drive okay
removed dw.exe
rebooted
cmos found hard drive but no bootable hard drive found.
started up xp off cd and it found a partition of only 8 gb out of 20
enough time spent, so i put in a new hard drive and am in the process of reinstalling all programs.
next week will install the old HDD in a non networked machine as a slave and see what is on it or not on it.

I wonder if the problem could have been the HDD all along?

thanks for the help!

[Budfred]

I suspect the problem was that dw.exe and it is probably still effecting your HD. How did you uninstall it?

Budfred

[malcore]

Here's another link with info about this bothersome program

http://and.doxdesk.com/parasite/DownloadWare.html