Immunization - 3 IE (32/64bit) that won't immunize

[SnowBum]

Now tick the second box "Replace permission entries on all child objects with the entries show here.." then click Apply. On the serurity dialogue that appears, click on Yes, then OK, then OK to exit the permissions for the trenitalisa.it key.

This should replace the permissions of the www subkey with those of its parent (the trenitalisa.it key), and you should now be able to delete the www subkey, and then delete the parent trenitalisa.it key

When i get to this step it gives an error, i've attached a screenshot of this.

I've uploaded that screenshot to an image host again, the PNG and GIF attachment options give rubbish images and the BMP one doesn't allow the resolution.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...wBum/error.jpg

It seems to me as if the sub-key structure is corrupted. It isn't accepting any changes to it's security permissions or owners. When i select the sub-key i get the "Cannot open www: Error while opening key" and when i OK that message and the sub-key appears opened in the regedit window there's no data for the sub-key.

[Greyfox]

From you screen shot it becomes evident I left out something from my previous instructions, and for the record it should have been:-

"Now click on the Permissions tab. Underneath the permissions entries box there are two tick boxes, the top one which would normally be ticked is "inherit from parent the permission entries that apply to child objects...."
Remove the tick from that box. A security dialogue will appear, click on "Remove". Whatever permission entries that are left showing, remove. Now retick the box for "inherit from parent the permission entries that apply to child objects....", then click on Apply. This will set up the correct permissions for the trenitalisa.it key (it will inherit them from the Domains key)"

That said, unfortunately the end result would have been the same in that it was not able to subsequently pass on the permissions to the subkey in the next step.

I don't at this stage totally subscribe to the key being "corrupted", mainly because it is not a matter of it affecting one such key, but 5 in Domains, 2 in EscDomains and 1 yet to be looked at in the Admin account, and I suspect they will all show exactly the same type of "Security" block that prevents their permissions from being accessed. If indeed it were corruption and to this extent it would be fair to say there would likely be other corruption elsewhere and that would make the whole OS installation suspect and make a strong case for a complete reinstallation. I still think however these have been deliberately locked by some sort of security policy.

Unfortunately I am not able at the moment to shed any light on how you can "unlock" them so you can access the permissions and delete them. I have run out of ideas. Hopefully some one else may have the answer you need, otherwise I guess an OS rebuild may be the only option.

I'm sorry I was not able to help you resolve this. If you do find a solution please post back and let's know what it involved .

[SnowBum]

I've gone off looking for any other solution to this problem.

I've found out that there're some applications that put null characters into sub-keys to make them "undeletable". I've ran a tool that auto-deletes these null character keys ................ but that didn't do any good.

What i have found is that if i go to the key and try to export it i get an error saying that the branch to the sub-key isn't a valid structure (or something like that).

Short of doing a full fresh install of WinXP i think that the solution to this problem will have to remain undiscovered. Right at the start i suggested to my workmate that a fresh install would be the best solution due to the severity of the malware infections he had but he wanted to keep his current install due to the large number of personal data files he had on it. I feel that i have gone as far as i can with it and am now going to hand it back over to him. The PC is now 100% stable, has firewall and anti-virus protection and the ability to sweep for malware (via Spybot S&D). All of the problems he initially had have been cleaned away, the registry/immunization problem was something that i wanted to get to the bottom of and i don't think it will effect his everyday running of the PC.

Thanks for all of your help, you guys are stars.

Regards

Steven Tedds