AVG: HOSTS reading error.

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Subject

Author

Date

AVG: HOSTS reading error.

C J.

05-19-2006

Re: HOSTS reading error.

YoKenny

05-19-2006

Posted by C J. on May 19, 2006, 1:07 pm

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Was helping a friend with their PC lastnight, and the situation seemed
unusual enough for me to ask about here for some feedback. This Person is
running XP Pro Sp2 on a Intel PC Clone fully patched, with its unused
services disabled, and ZA Pro firewall and AVG Professional installed.

Recently, they indicated to me they had been experiencing a lot of page type
"clicking or ticking" going on - while their PC was connected to the
internet with their browser closed. So lastnight - I ran a custom check of
the system areas and an empty folder with AVG.

One item came back as "changed " Shell32 - and HOSTS returned a Read
Error. On closer inspection of the \System32\drivers\etc folder... found
HOSTS.bak but no Hosts so I replaced the file. But now I'm wondering about
Shell32... does it always change? Normal viral and spyware scans detect
nothing.

Posted by YoKenny on May 19, 2006, 5:22 pm

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C J. typed:

> Was helping a friend with their PC lastnight, and the situation seemed

> unusual enough for me to ask about here for some feedback. This

> Person is running XP Pro Sp2 on a Intel PC Clone fully patched, with

> its unused services disabled, and ZA Pro firewall and AVG

> Professional installed.

> Recently, they indicated to me they had been experiencing a lot of

> page type "clicking or ticking" going on - while their PC was

> connected to the internet with their browser closed. So lastnight -

> I ran a custom check of the system areas and an empty folder with AVG.

> One item came back as "changed " Shell32 - and HOSTS returned a Read

> Error. On closer inspection of the \System32\drivers\etc folder...

> found HOSTS.bak but no Hosts so I replaced the file. But now I'm

> wondering about Shell32... does it always change? Normal viral and

> spyware scans detect nothing.

Read about Shell32:
http://process.networktechs.com/Shell32.dll.php

It can change but usually does not unless it gets infected with a virus or
worm.

Found with Google in 0.37 seconds.

Posted by Noel Paton on May 21, 2006, 5:08 pm

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>C J. typed:

>> Was helping a friend with their PC lastnight, and the situation seemed

>> unusual enough for me to ask about here for some feedback. This

>> Person is running XP Pro Sp2 on a Intel PC Clone fully patched, with

>> its unused services disabled, and ZA Pro firewall and AVG

>> Professional installed.

>> Recently, they indicated to me they had been experiencing a lot of

>> page type "clicking or ticking" going on - while their PC was

>> connected to the internet with their browser closed. So lastnight -

>> I ran a custom check of the system areas and an empty folder with AVG.

>> One item came back as "changed " Shell32 - and HOSTS returned a Read

>> Error. On closer inspection of the \System32\drivers\etc folder...

>> found HOSTS.bak but no Hosts so I replaced the file. But now I'm

>> wondering about Shell32... does it always change? Normal viral and

>> spyware scans detect nothing.

> Read about Shell32:

> http://process.networktechs.com/Shell32.dll.php

> It can change but usually does not unless it gets infected with a virus or

> worm.

The Shell32.dll file gets updated in MANY Windows updates - it's one of the
main libraries used by Windows.
The version in a fully-updated Win98SE system is 4.72.3812.600

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2006, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.crashfixpc.com/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

Posted by Virus Guy on May 21, 2006, 6:29 pm

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Noel Paton wrote:

> The Shell32.dll file gets updated in MANY Windows updates - it's

> one of the main libraries used by Windows.

> The version in a fully-updated Win98SE system is 4.72.3812.600

Just to be sure, I went to windows-updates and installed 3 updates
that were waiting for me. My version of shell32.dll remained
unchanged:

Size: 1,400,832 bytes
Date: April 23, 1999 10:22:00 pm
Version: 4.72.3612.1700

I believe that is the original version for win-98se.

I went to another win-98 machine and found it had this version:

Size: 1,388,816
Date: December 6, 2001 11:25:08 pm
Version: 4.72.3812.600

Hmmm. So why does one machine have the original, and another has this
2001 version?

There must have been an old update (circa early 2002 ?) that was the
source of the newer file, with no updates since (if, as you claim, the
.600 version is the last). If so, then I would question the claim
that there have been *many* updates to this file.

So, can I simply swap the old file for the new one?

Anyone know how many versions of Shell32.dll have been issued by MS
for Win-98se?

Posted by Noel Paton on May 21, 2006, 7:50 pm

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The 600 is the subversion - the version number is
4.72 - which is the same for Win and Win98SE
the minor version number is 3812 in mine - and 3612 in yours.

The minor version may be dependent on IE version number - I'm not sure

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2006, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.crashfixpc.com/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

> Noel Paton wrote:

>> The Shell32.dll file gets updated in MANY Windows updates - it's

>> one of the main libraries used by Windows.

>> The version in a fully-updated Win98SE system is 4.72.3812.600

> Just to be sure, I went to windows-updates and installed 3 updates

> that were waiting for me. My version of shell32.dll remained

> unchanged:

> Size: 1,400,832 bytes

> Date: April 23, 1999 10:22:00 pm

> Version: 4.72.3612.1700

> I believe that is the original version for win-98se.

> I went to another win-98 machine and found it had this version:

> Size: 1,388,816

> Date: December 6, 2001 11:25:08 pm

> Version: 4.72.3812.600

> Hmmm. So why does one machine have the original, and another has this

> 2001 version?

> There must have been an old update (circa early 2002 ?) that was the

> source of the newer file, with no updates since (if, as you claim, the

> .600 version is the last). If so, then I would question the claim

> that there have been *many* updates to this file.

> So, can I simply swap the old file for the new one?

> Anyone know how many versions of Shell32.dll have been issued by MS

> for Win-98se?

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