Blank Pop-up Box when booting Win XP Pro

[rwc01]

I have a blank box pop up every time I boot my Windows XP Pro computer. I have no clue as to where it came from and if it is some kind of malware or not. I use good safe surfing habits and have very good spyware and virus protection installed on my machine so this may just be some kind of anomaly that just happened to appear one day. I leave my machine on all the time so it is hard to tell when and what made it all of a sudden appear one day when I had to reboot for what ever reason or so. The box is always blank except for some small number of crazy and weird characters like music symbols and the like in the upper left hand corner of the box. It also makes a reference to usually something like c:\windows\system32\(whatever).(whatever)in the blue bar at the top of the box. The (whatever) is not always the same each time...it varies. There is an OK button at the bottom of the box and by clicking on it...the box goes away, the icons appear and the computer goes on into Windows XP normally and everything works just fine as far as I can tell. It looks like whatever is causing this to happen is pretty much at the end of the boot up cycle. Is there a good way to diagnose what this strange animal might be?

Thanks,
Rwc01

 

[schtek]

type msconfig in run box, go to the startup tag, untick 1 box at a time to find out what prog it is, then go from there!!

"Practice makes Perfect"
("la pratique rend parfait")
CPO rt'd RN

 

[linney]

What happens in Safe Mode, or if you logon as another user in Normal Mode?

310353 - How to Perform a Clean Boot in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310353&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

316434 - HOW TO: Perform Advanced Clean-Boot Troubleshooting in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316434&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

310560 - How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310560&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Removing adware & spyware
faq608-4650

Try the free version of "Ewido" now called "AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5"

http://www.ewido.net/en/download/

Windows Defender

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

This will show you a detailed inventory of all automatic startup programs, services and drivers on your machine.

http://www.diamondcs.com.au/freeutilities/asviewer.php

 

[SirBlack]

Besides AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5, they offer a free AV and a free Anti-Rootkit available at

http://free.grisoft.com/.

As careful as you are, it sounds like some sort of scumware in your system.
You might also try downloading & running Process Explorer

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/processesandthreads/processexplorer.mspx

or read the review & download from

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,23780-order,1-page,1/description.html

It's much better than msconfig as it gives more details & it's free. If none of these work, download HiJackThis.

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/programs.php

Save it to its own folder. Scan only when you run it & then post the log here. The download site has some other free downloads you might be interested in.