Another Windows XP Recovery attack

Thats why we combofix again, as another check for malware. I assume thats what you mean. If you havent recently run malwarebytes check for updates first then rerun it. also please rescan and post a new DDS log since its been awhile since the last one. Maybe something new will show up in those.
Is the menu empty for all the user profiles?
 
O.K., I checked each profile on the computer and it appears that all common files are showing empty. Then if there is a program that is loaded under just one profile, it may or maynot show up. I totally don't understand.
Attached are the files from Malware and DDS.
BTW, when the computer starts up now, it shows the F8 screen - start up in safe mode or normal mode. It has normal mode selected, then passes on thru. This screen just shows long enough to see it, then the computer finishes booting without further incident.

Is your head hurting yet.....:slap:....I know mine is
 
Dosn't hurt yet, getting close though. All those recent logs look ok. Do you want to do a system restore? A point in time before the start menu problem? Malwarebytes does a pretty good job of cleaning any potential malware out of them. I assume it all started with the malware and you could chose a point before then to restore to. At this point it may be worth a try because I dont see any malware and we have run several registry repair tools.
 
It looks like that might be the only thing left to try.
Guess it can't hurt anything any worse then it all ready is.
 
No luck with that. The two reg dumps look similar to my own. Using explorer if you go to C:\Program Files, do you see all the program folders listed and if you double click one of them on the right you see the .exe and other files in the folders?
 
Yes, when I use explorer, I can see the program folder, and all the sub folders. When I open one of the sub folders, I can see what appears to be all the associated files.
I just went to the [microsoft office] folder and was able to open [excel].
BTW, I will be out of town starting Friday, figure most people will at least be doing something this weekend.
Thanks for the help, and if I don't hear from you between know and then, type to you next week.
 
hi,

Ok. You can try this. Your start menu looks like this: See menu.png attachment,
The Dexclock folder as a example on my machine displays as empty when clicked.
If you double click one of the empty folders, in the menu.png screenshot example the folder is circled as Dexclock,
A window opens and is empty. See screenshot menu1.png showing the empty folder in explorer.
Keep this window open for now. Right click on start>explore and navigate to C:\Program Files and find the Deskclock folder, see screenshot menu2.png. showing the two windows opened together.
You can right click on the .exe file in C;\Program Files and drag/drop them into the Start Menu creating a short cut to the .exe. You could also drag/drop a shortcut to the desktop if its a app you use alot.
See screenshot menu3.png.
This will place a short cut in the start Menu. see screenshot4.png and you will be able to launch the app using the start>programs menu.
 
Shelflife,
Hope you had a good 4th. We were out of town all week, now paying the price at work.:sad:
Well, I tried as you suggested, and it will work or at least it seems to work.
Sure is going to be a long process. Hopefully I can find all the .exe files. I'll have to dig around and see if I can find them.
If you happen to think of anything else, let me know.
Thanks for the help.
 
hi,

Welcome back. You could just create the shortcuts for stuff you use the most. As far as I know we pretty much exhausted all the other possible fixes.

Another option would be to do a restore of Windows, not a system restore like we tried.

I assume you have a commercially purchased machine. These usually come with restore partitions or restore disks. It might be possible to do a restore back to factory conditions or a restore of Windows from the partition or a disk. These options I think would preserve your own documents etc you put on the computer. Not sure on that, I build my own and dont have much experience with restore disks and partitions. Probably varies anyway from vendor to vendor. Not talking about a reformat which would wipe your hard drive.

The best place to at least investigate this would be the computer vendors website. Most have very good information and guides. One thing you want to makes sure of is if the procedure will preserve your data. Iam sure they would recommend first backing up anything you didnt want to lose, just as a precaution, (this would be content you created like documents, pictures, video etc) before you started any procedure.
 
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