Strange Windows problem

[Mark Asher]

Now and then, I get a spontaneous launch of a new window displaying the System 32 folder. Any idea what would cause this?

[XPav]

I see this on my Windows 2000 development system at work too, and I keep that system clean (no spyware, virus scanned, using Mozilla, etc). It launches some other folder that I've used recently, and I don't understand it either.

[Ergo]

Stolen from the mytechsupport forums:

" Hope you dont mind digging in the registry.You may like to do a backup first if unsure.Hope this fixes your prob.

The two keys in question are HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.

Each named value within these two keys represents a program launched at start-up; each value's data holds the command to be executed. If the command is blank or contains just a character in double quotation marks, this missing data can cause Windows to display the System32 folder at start-up.

To fix the problem launch REGEDIT from the Start menu's Run dialog and navigate to one of the keys mentioned above. Select Export from the Registry menu and export the key to a REG file, so you can undo any deletions if necessary. Look carefully at each value in the right-hand pane. If the value's data is blank, contains only single quotation marks, or otherwise appears to be corrupted, delete the value. Repeat the process for the other key, then restart your system to verify that the problem window does not appear at start-up."

[XPav]

But these windows don't appear at startup.

They appear at seemingly random times.

[Warlord of Mars]

Oh boy. That sounds like the Kwbot worm.

[XPav]

Seeing as how I've never run Kazaa on that computer, sit far behind a firewall, and have had have weekly scheduled virus scans with updated definitions, I'm going to say "probably not."

Sure, Mark might.