Operating System: Windows XP
Type: Malware/Spyware
Problem:
After I had a customer’s computer infected with some regular trojans/malware. I couldn’t get automatic updates and BIT services started.When trying to start these services I received this error message:
“Error 2: The system cannot find the file specified.“
Hijackthis reported these two entries that didn’t seem legit:
O23 – Service: Automatic Updates (wuauserv) – Unknown owner – C:\WINDOWS\
O23 – Service: Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) – Unknown owner – C:\WINDOWS\
I found this article on experts-exchange with a guy with a same problem. I searched long and hard and still no dice. I finally stumbled across a little google groups thread with this advice. Make sure you backup your registry before you attempt this. Also, good idea to do a system restore check point.
Solution:
- start —> run —> regedt32.exe
- Do a search for %fystemroot%
- If you find any hits, first change the permissions on the folders so you can edit the registry entry.
- change %fystemroot% to %systemroot%
- press F3 until you find all entries and repeat step 4.
- Try to start BITS and Automatic Updates
The orginal quote from the google group’s thread:
SOLUTION FOUND:
In my registry, the virus had replaced “%systemroot%” with “%fystemroot%”
in several spots, so the correct files could not be found. I did a search
for “fystemroot” in regedit, and replaced with “systemroot”. (I did have to
click “Edit” / “Permissions” and allow full control in each of the folders
first. Evidently the virus disabled the permissions first.) I hope this
helps anyone else who has a similar issue.
Please comment if this worked for you. Need all the feedback I can get on this solution.
Recent Comments