Icons only in XP

[timmymacs]

Hey guys,

This thing is doing my head in massively. I got called out to a customer with a Dell inspiron desktop running XP with an apparent infection. XP has 5 different user accounts for the mother and 4 daughters living in the house. Booting into windows showed a desktop with a heap of icons, none of which had labels. right-clicking on anything brought up a menu but all the spots in that menu were blank - icons showing only. Control panel, msconfig and anything i tried to run opened, but showed no text anywhere. I booted into safe mode and nothing was visible but a black screen with safe mode written around the edge (this was in every user account). I somehow ran Malwarebytes then ComboFix both of which returned a heap of infections. I uninstalled Mcafee because i always do, and because i thought that it might be the cause... again no luck. I am about the Fabs all the user account data then system restore back a few weeks and see what i can repair, just thought I would see if I am missing an easy fix.

Would an infection cause this problem? Is it something to do with a missing dll or fonts? I have attached some screen shots for your perusal.

cheers

 

[iisjman07]

Firstly you should probably decide whether the best action would be to reinstall windows. I don't know how amazing you are removing malware but it sounds heavily infected, and it will take considerable time and effort to clean up.

If you want to remove the malware, you're probably going to need to run offline scans. I'd recommend using the Kaspersky Rescue Disk to scan the drive from a Linux environment. Update it and let it run overnight, see what it comes up with in the morning.

 

[Bobbing]

Have you tried running system file checker "sfc /scannow" or maybe try the "Rebuild Icons" in Tweak UI.
Defiantly run a offline scanner like Avira Antivir rescue system or something similar like mentioned.

 

[B Trevathan]

Try something simple first like changing the desktop icon font to something else, say if they're using the Tahoma font then change them to the Arial font.

Have you checked to see if the font files where still there, like in the font folder? These are the fonts supplied with Windows XP

Maybe its a bad video card or video driver, check by running a live CD like Avira Rescue CD that way you can do two things at once, check for malware and test the video.

 

[timmymacs]

Try something simple first like changing the desktop icon font to something else, say if they're using the Tahoma font then change them to the Arial font.

Have you checked to see if the font files where still there, like in the font folder? These are the fonts supplied with Windows XP

Maybe its a bad video card or video driver, check by running a live CD like Avira Rescue CD that way you can do two things at once, check for malware and test the video.

I have tested with Several video cards and the onboard graphics and they all give same result. It seems that the font files are all still there, but hard to tell when they have no labels just icons. Even in list form.

If you want to remove the malware, you're probably going to need to run offline scans. I'd recommend using the Kaspersky Rescue Disk to scan the drive from a Linux environment. Update it and let it run overnight, see what it comes up with in the morning.

Ran the Kaspersky Rescue disk over night which showed no infections. Obviously all cleaned up by Malwarebytes, and Combofix.

Also tried running the tweakUI but could not see any writing in that program to actually select the right process to run!

Going to slave the drive again, fabs the data, try a sysrestore, then N&P if no luck. happy to try other suggestions if you have them

 

[B Trevathan]

Maybe try selecting several desktop icons at the same time that way maybe the icon fonts will be highlighted and you might be able to see them.

Did you try changing the desktop icon font to something else, anything else?

Did you try restoring to an earlier restore point and have you tried running system file checker? If your worried about trying to do them blind in Windows run them from a ERD Commander for XP CD.

 

[timmymacs]

Solved the issue by doing a repair install of windows. (Love you XP!)

Some strange stuff. I tried everything suggested, it was just too hard to to know what I was doing without the words in the menus.

I have never seen quite so many torrent/p2p/toolbar programs on one PC. Made some extra cash on selling a 3PC version of Kaspersky too as the McAfee installed was clearly not doing its job.