After scan reboot returns c:\windows\system32\command.com the parameter is incorrect

I was having issues logging in to my Windows XP operating system following a large update from Spybot (my PC has not been in use for the last 18 months+) & an update of the Windows Service Pack (to v2 I believe). Each time I tried to log in I was confronted by a system32 command message saying the parameters were incorrect. Given that I could not get into the system (due to these messages preventing me) I followed the instructions one of the Spybot team had given to another poster suggesting you go into the task manager, the Spybot advanced user setting & delete the Spybot entries from the list (and as such am now able to use the system). I saved the start-up Spybot list as suggested by one of the members of the team so that I could send it to you for review but the attachment is too large for the forum I have been told.

Please can you let me know who I could send this attachment to for review and advice in terms of the best way forward?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

I did exactly what you, Yodama, said and it worked. After unchecking all of the Spybotdelete entries I rebooted my computer and when it came back up it ran Spybot in blind user mode. Afterwards I didn't have any problems at all. I am convinced that removing Zango caused the issue. After I rebooted, Zango, and the command.exe screen were gone.

Thanks.......

I will make my startup report my next post because it is too big for one entry.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yodama

hello,

I think that md usa spybot fans did diagnose the symptoms of this issue correctly.
But there appears to be an issue with the command.com and/or the cmd.exe on the affected computers.

Let's try another approach to eliminate the symptoms of this issue:

• boot the computer normally
• when the first error messages about the command.com appear open the taskmanager with ctrl+alt+del and then choosing the taskmanager
• terminate the explorer.exe
• then choose file - new task
• enter the path to Spybot S&D (default: c:\Program Files\Spybot - Search & Destroy\SpybotSD.exe) to start Spybot S&D
• switch to advanced mode
• navigate to tools - system startup
• click the export button and save the startup report file to a location you can easily find later
• remove all Spybotdelete entries from the startup list
• within Spybot S&D (Processlist) terminate the remaining instances of command.com and cmd.exe (ntvdm.exe) and close the error message windows if they are still present ( you can mark multiple entries while holding the shift and/or ctrl key and terminate them together)
• from the Taskmanager choose File - new task and enter explorer to restart the explorer
• attach the startup report file you saved ealier to your next post

We will require the startup report file to diagnose the cause of this issue. We may also require a complete log file later.

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hello,

thank you for you positive feedback.
If the report is too large you can also sent it to detections@spybot.info with a reference to this thread.

I had this exact same problem, and I know what caused it for me. After removing Zango, Spybot had 253 deletions it wanted to do. Instead of getting all the popups on a slow computer, I decided to delete the directory that spybot was deleting and restart. Once I restarted, Spybot had it set to delete the files that I had already deleted, hence the improper parameter at startup.

I hope this helps. Also, is it possible to put in an accept all in these situations? I certainly didn't want to click agree to 300 popups.

thank you so much, finally this is all done over with. I a run in with windows/system32/command, and besides all my efforts to get eliminate it, nothing was able to detect it.... i followed yodama's directions and it worked instantly. here is the spyboot SD report from my computer:

--- Spybot - Search & Destroy version: 1.6.0 (build: 20080707) ---

2008-07-07 blindman.exe (1.0.0.8)
2008-07-07 SDFiles.exe (1.6.0.4)
2008-07-07 SDMain.exe (1.0.0.6)
2008-07-07 SDShred.exe (1.0.2.3)
2008-07-07 SDUpdate.exe (1.6.0.8)
2008-07-07 SDWinSec.exe (1.0.0.12)
2008-07-07 SpybotSD.exe (1.6.0.30)
2008-09-16 TeaTimer.exe (1.6.3.25)
2008-08-05 unins000.exe (51.49.0.0)
2008-07-07 Update.exe (1.6.0.7)
2008-07-07 advcheck.dll (1.6.1.12)
2007-04-02 aports.dll (2.1.0.0)
2008-06-14 DelZip179.dll (1.79.11.1)
2008-09-15 SDHelper.dll (1.6.2.14)
2008-06-19 sqlite3.dll
2008-07-07 Tools.dll (2.1.5.7)
2008-09-02 Includes\Adware.sbi
2008-10-27 Includes\AdwareC.sbi
2008-06-03 Includes\Cookies.sbi
2008-09-02 Includes\Dialer.sbi
2008-09-09 Includes\DialerC.sbi
2008-07-23 Includes\HeavyDuty.sbi
2008-09-02 Includes\Hijackers.sbi
2008-10-28 Includes\HijackersC.sbi
2008-09-09 Includes\Keyloggers.sbi
2008-10-28 Includes\KeyloggersC.sbi
2004-11-29 Includes\LSP.sbi
2008-10-28 Includes\Malware.sbi
2008-10-28 Includes\MalwareC.sbi
2008-09-02 Includes\PUPS.sbi
2008-10-28 Includes\PUPSC.sbi
2007-11-07 Includes\Revision.sbi
2008-06-18 Includes\Security.sbi
2008-10-23 Includes\SecurityC.sbi
2008-06-03 Includes\Spybots.sbi
2008-06-03 Includes\SpybotsC.sbi
2008-10-28 Includes\Spyware.sbi
2008-10-29 Includes\SpywareC.sbi
2008-06-03 Includes\Tracks.uti
2008-10-29 Includes\Trojans.sbi
2008-10-29 Includes\TrojansC.sbi
2008-03-04 Plugins\Chai.dll
2008-03-05 Plugins\Fennel.dll
2008-02-26 Plugins\Mate.dll
2007-12-24 Plugins\TCPIPAddress.dll

Located: HK_LM:Run, Adobe Reader Speed Launcher
command: "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\Reader_sl.exe"
file: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\Reader_sl.exe
size: 34672
MD5: 69B16C7B7746BA5C642FC05B3561FC73

Located: HK_LM:Run, avast!
command: C:\PROGRA~1\ALWILS~1\Avast4\ashDisp.exe
file: C:\PROGRA~1\ALWILS~1\Avast4\ashDisp.exe
size: 0
MD5: D41D8CD98F00B204E9800998ECF8427E
Warning: if the file is actually larger than 0 bytes,
the checksum could not be properly calculated!

Hello everyone. I had this problem yesterday and I tried to follow the instructions for fixing this posted earlier by Yodama. But when I got to the following instruction I got stuck:

"remove all Spybotdelete entries from the startup list"

The problem was that there were many, many Spybotdelete entries in the startup list. I think there were several hundred, perhaps even thousands of such entries. And I could not find any way to do a "SELECT ALL" and do a multi-delete. It looked like you could only delete one entry at a time. It would have taken me hours to do that. It was just not a practical solution - especially since I wasn't sure if all my hours of labor would actually pay off. So that is where I got stuck. I tried one other thing - rebooting in Safe Mode and uninstalling Spybot to see if I could get past the error on command.com problem but this did not work either. So in the end, I had no choice but wiping everything out and reinstalling XP from a Restore disk. I am just curious of Yodama or anyone else has any further information about how to recover from a problem like this. I have used Spybot for years and never ran into this. This happened when I first installed Spybot on a friend's computer last night. It was very embarassing to have to tell her that I just trashed her computer after trying to help her get rid of spyware with Spybot.

Alex

Quote:

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Originally Posted by evelone

I did exactly what you, Yodama, said and it worked. After unchecking all of the Spybotdelete entries I rebooted my computer and when it came back up it ran Spybot in blind user mode. Afterwards I didn't have any problems at all. I am convinced that removing Zango caused the issue. After I rebooted, Zango, and the command.exe screen were gone.

Thanks.......

I will make my startup report my next post because it is too big for one entry.

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boot into safe mode and access regedit.
Navigate to the following registry key and see if there is an entry with "spybot delete c:\windows\system32\command.com ... or similar.

Code:

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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

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and also check

Code:

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HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

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delete all entries and reboot

Just had a system with 28440 hits which then returned the command.com error. After removing from local machine it still produced the same error until i also removed them from current user.
Cheers

Ok this worked for me too. It did take about 20 minutes to go through the list and uncheck all the Spybotdelete entries, but after I did, the machine would boot back up.

One thing here, I don't know if anyone else noticed, but this issue is only consistant with "Administrators" rights holders. This machine that I am working on had five users, three admins and two limited accounts. The machine would hang only on the admins, logging in as one of the limited account users the machine would run properly. I couldn't do anything in either account to alleviate the problem but the issue is only with administrator rights holders.

Does this info help with troubleshooting the problem?

I am now re-running Spybot and it hasn't come across Zango, but if it does should I go ahead and allow removal?

AN EASY SOLUTION THAT LUCKILY WORKED FOR ME

I experienced this problem yesterday when installing Spybot S&D 1.6 on a friend's computer that appeared to have a browser hijack (Google results all redirected to a shopping page). The scan came back with multiple infections including Virtumonde, Zlob Downloader, Windows security bypass to name a few. Zango was also there. 622 issues altogether. When I click "fix selected problems", I received the message saying "may Spybot run again after rebooting?" I agreed and on rebooting had the fatal "command.com parameter incorrect" message as well a similar issue with cmd.exe.

My observations were:
1) Could boot OK in Safe mode
2) Initially impacted only Adminstrator accounts, may have changed after several reboots to affect all accounts
3) When booting in non-safe mode, initial welcome screen came up OK, you could select the account, and wallpaper was shown. Then the problems started.

While I was backing up the Documents and Settings folder, anticipating a possible Windows re-install, I came across this page (using another PC): http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt...incorrect.html

The solution I looked the like of best (i.e. easy to try) was from Ricky6970, namely "hit Escape a gazillion times". Well, I tried that and after about 30 hits, amazingly, the Spybot window that you see after rebooting came up. I allowed the scan to complete and then chose the option to reverse recent changes. One of the entries that was restored was Zango. After that, the computer booted perfectly time after time.

The end situation is that the friend's computer is probably still packed with spyware and worse, but at least she can use it while we plan a likely Windows re-install in an orderly fashion. It is a small business accounts computer so thank God (and Ricky6970)!

I have been using Spybot for many years, and this was the first time I ever experienced anything like this. Hope the post helps.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce]
"SpybotDeletingA720"="command.com /c del \"C:\\WINDOWS\\SchedLgU.Txt\""
"SpybotDeletingC1143"="cmd.exe /c del \"C:\\WINDOWS\\SchedLgU.Txt\""



I had just done a complete scan using advanced settings. at the end of the scan SB hung seemed to hang / freeze but did not have kill process. the title bar of the scan dialog had the word ZOOM on the top of it.