I’ve never had this happen before. I’m running XP with SP3. Always kept up to date and always running Microsoft Security Essentials (soon to change) and manually scan every week or so with Malwarebytes, Hitman Pro and SuperAntiSpyware programs – and MSE does a quick scan daily. Never find anything but cookies that these programs pick-up.
So last night I boot up the computer and the main desktop comes up and looks normal. The mouse curser moves around, but I can’t click or open anything. I can’t even shut the computer down with the mouse – I have to hold the power button down for 5+ seconds to do a hard shutdown. Try booting up a couple more times – same result. I noticed on one of the boot-ups I got a pop-up warning window that said: “Antimalware Service Executable has encountered a problem and needs to close.” I click OK and the warning window goes away. Computer seemed like it was working somewhat at that time. I had the router on, so was connected to the outside world.
I shutdown and rebooted in Safe Mode, and ran MSE (full scan), Malwarebytes (full scan), SuperAntiSpyware (quick scan) and Hitman Pro. I didn’t find anything but a few cookies by Hitman Pro and SuperAntiSpyware. Hitman Pro however showed a file called “iedkcs32.dll” in the list of items it found, but it said “ignore” instead of “delete” for recommended action. I have never seen Hitman Pro pick this file up before when scanning - maybe due to being in Safe Mode? I tried to look at my firewall setting in Safe Mode, but it wouldn’t allow me. I’m not connected to the router through all this.
Reboot normally again (still have the router off) and still have the movable cursor, but still can’t click anything open. When I put the cursor anywhere on the task bar at the bottom of the screen, I see the cursor turn into the hour glass symbol. Did another hard shutdown and reboot. Got the same pop-up warning about the “Antimalware Service Executable has a problem and needs to close.” Clicked OK, and had some mouse control and then was able to look at my firewall setting, and found it was turned off. Turned it back on, then did manual scans with MWB and Hitman Pro again – they found nothing.
When the pop-up warning showed up this time I also got a couple of other pop-up windows that came up out of the task bar at the bottom of the screen about Microsoft Security Essentials. So I’m thinking this “Antimalware Service Executable has encountered a problem and needs to close” message has something to do with MSE. I ran out of time, and my next step is to turn the router on and see if I can get on the internet without any issues.
If so, my plan is to download Bitdefender Free, disable my router, then uninstall MSE and install Bitdefender Free. Not sure if Bitdefender Free will load without accessing the internet or not - I have a feelling it will access the internet (Bitdefender's server probably) since the executable is only like 165K in size. If so, then I guess I’ll leave MSE on and running until Bitdefender is up and running. Yes, I know I need to get rid of Windows XP and will probably buy a whole new computer system sometime soon, but I need to keep this machine going until then. 
So, any gurus here that might know what was going on here, and if my plan on how to get MSE off and Bitdefender on the computer is good? Sorry the write-up is so long, but wanted to give some good details to help describe what happened.
Thanks in advance, I've been saved a couple of times with help from the computer guys here before, and it's highly appreciated!
So, any gurus here that might know what was going on here, and if my plan on how to get MSE off and Bitdefender on the computer is good? Sorry the write-up is so long, but wanted to give some good details to help describe what happened.
Thanks in advance, I've been saved a couple of times with help from the computer guys here before, and it's highly appreciated!
