Error message "Spybot S & D has changed..."

Mind that this is a paraphrase of the error message; I didn't copy it exactly, but I'm sure you'll recognize it. "Spybot S & D has changed. Since the program does not change itself, you should immediately check your system for viruses and other malware."

I have gotten this error intermittently several times now. Have tried several malware/antivirus detection programs (Panda, Kaspersky, etc.) and I own Norton Antivirus and keep it updated with the latest downloads from Symantec. I also use Ad-Aware Personal, again with all the latest updates.

I don't know what else to do. My various scans show nothing. I am running Win2K Professional SP4 with all the latest updates.

Thanks in advance for your help,
Jeff

Hello again. :) Please have a look at this thread:
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=258
This post by md usa spybot fan,in particular:
http://forums.spybot.info/showpost.p...54&postcount=7

Zenobia, thanks again. Will try a memory test to see what is happening. My machine has been misbehaving intermittently lately, rebooting itself with no warning, etc. Not enough to be annoying. I just wrote it off to Windows instability. I'll post back after I've done the check.

Thanks,
Jeff

You're welcome.Good luck with the memory test. :)

Downloaded both memtest86 v3.2 from http://www.memtest86.com and memtest86+ v1.7 from http://www.memtest.org. The latter is an updated version of the original memtest86 v3.2 which has not been updated since some time in 2004.

Results were clearly bad. In a little over an hour's testing, my one 256MB ram module racked up over 2000 individual errors. Time for a visit to the local computer store. Well, at least this gives me a chance to upgrade to a greater amount of memory. Since my Iwill cube only has one memory slot, I'm getting a 1GB module.

I have other information to pass on after I upgrade the memory and rerun the test.

Cheers,
Jeff

Sorry to hear that. :sad: I had somewhat similar problems a few years back.Good luck with the upgrade. :)

Thanks for the feedback!!!

Make sure that the memory that you get is compatible with your system. Sites that may help:

• http://www.crucial.com/
• http://www.kingston.com/

Was able to find compatible memory, upgraded to PC3200 1GB module from 256MB of PC2100. Ran memtest86+ for over 4 hours, all tests, no errors reported. Spybot S&D runs fine so far with the new memory config.

Additional info from my research: It seems that Vista can have stability issues because of a new feature called ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization). ASLR can cause Vista to be loaded into address space never before used by Win 2K or XP (my old 256MB RAM was experiencing lots of errors between about 80 MB and 117 MB, according to memtest86+). If you have any even intermittently faulty memory blocks on any of the RAM modules in your system, this can be a major source of Vista instability. Here's a link: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=399

If I have another occurrence of the "Spybot S&D has changed..." error, I'll post again here. Until then, you may assume the problem has been solved.

Thanks again to Zenobia and md usa spybot fan for the info,
Jeff

I'm glad everything went okay. :)