4 replies to this topic

[slowday444]

I am always amazed at Rorschach's abilities in helping victims recover from malware infestations and periodically read the threads.  At the end of the most recent thread he suggests TFC.  Fortunately, I took a snapshot of my system before trying it over the weekend.  After the first reboot in just the past two days I discovered it had wiped out the functionality of three programs.  Over time I may have discovered others.  It left both PopTray and WeatherPulse icons in the notification tray and in the start menu list but both programs were totally dead.  It also completely removed my VPN connection (no evidence of it ever even existing) other than the desktop shortcut.

[fireryone]

According to the info about TFC it only deletes temp files from every user account.

Quote

TFC only cleans temp folders. TFC will not clean URL history, prefetch, or cookies. Depending on how often someone cleans their temp folders, their system hardware, and how many accounts are present, it can take anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or more. TFC will completely clear all temp files where other temp file cleaners may fail. TFC requires a reboot immediately after running. Be sure to save any unsaved work before running TFC.
http://www.geekstogo...er-file187.html

I can imagine getting rid of VPN setting as a normal part of cleaning up an infection as it wouldn't be as fast for the spyware mod to manually work out if it was a valid VPN,
but from what I can see TFC shouldn't touch those settings.

[Rorschach112]

This is extremely unlikely related to TFC

I will forward it to the developer though just in case, and see if he has any idea

[slowday444]

Rorschach112, on Nov 23 2009, 12:12 PM, said:

This is extremely unlikely related to TFC

I will forward it to the developer though just in case, and see if he has any idea

Admittedly, I'm merely basing this on the fact that I didn't use any utilities (other than CC) over the weekend.  The other strange thing about the incident, as I mentioned, is it left icons, and shortcuts but essentially removed the programs.  All could have easily been installed again, including running the connection wizard for the VPN issue, but it was just quicker to restore an AyRecovery snapshot with a reboot.  Hope I never have to call on you for malware help and keep up the amazing work!

[Rorschach112]

If your applications were running from a temp folder then they would be removed. Otherwise, there must be something else responsible