At Last... A Solution to Windows Automatic Update Problems

I've experienced the problems all of you have been having with the Automatic
Windows Update feature on Windows XP. After doing some research online I'm
convinced that it must be cause by a virus. I scanned my machine and found
that I had several of them.

Searching for information on how to remove the series of "Vundo",
"Virtumonde" and "Smithfraud-c" trojan viruses from my computer. I tried
Microsoft Onecare.live site and downloaded the software. It located some of
the viruses but did NOT remove them... much to my disappointment! One of the
viruses prevented Automatic Windows Update from operating and it would not
allow the Automatic Updates to be set from the Microsoft Windows XP Security
Center.

I searched the Microsoft.com Communities Newsgroups and found that there
have been several hundred people who experienced the same problems cause by
this "Vundo" virus family. I tried many of the solutions proposed by various
contributors... some by Microsoft employees, but none of them worked. I tried
Spybot, Norton 360 and AdWare SE... they did not work either.

The saving grace was that I found buried a post provided by a person named
"ronrieger" on 12/30/2008. He described how he downloaded free software from
www.SUPERAntispyware.com, ran it and found the trojans that other programs
failed to find AND better yet, it removed them! Then he went back to WUAUSERV
and was able to set the Automatic Updates entry to "Start" and the problem
was resolved!

I give all the credit to "ronrieger". I repeated his suggestion and it
worked! I would suggest that Microsoft inform ALL it's Windows users that
this is a quick and easy solution to the Automatic Windows Update problem and
that it is an excellent software which Microsoft should recommend to the
hundreds or thousands of users experiencing the same problem. It would save
thousands of manhours of work and frustration to your users. Thanks again to
ronrieger and the creators of SuperAntispyware.com. I will indeed make a
voluntary donation to these people. Obviously they have a superior product!
--
DrJoeJr

Tip: Post your HijackThis log to an appropriate for review by an expert to
make certain the machine's clean!
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/

DrJoeJr wrote:
> I've experienced the problems all of you have been having with the
> Automatic
> Windows Update feature on Windows XP. After doing some research online I'm
> convinced that it must be cause by a virus. I scanned my machine and found
> that I had several of them.
>
> Searching for information on how to remove the series of "Vundo",
> "Virtumonde" and "Smithfraud-c" trojan viruses from my computer. I tried
> Microsoft Onecare.live site and downloaded the software. It located some
> of
> the viruses but did NOT remove them... much to my disappointment! One of
> the
> viruses prevented Automatic Windows Update from operating and it would not
> allow the Automatic Updates to be set from the Microsoft Windows XP
> Security
> Center.
>
> I searched the Microsoft.com Communities Newsgroups and found that there
> have been several hundred people who experienced the same problems cause
> by
> this "Vundo" virus family. I tried many of the solutions proposed by
> various
> contributors... some by Microsoft employees, but none of them worked. I
> tried Spybot, Norton 360 and AdWare SE... they did not work either.
>
> The saving grace was that I found buried a post provided by a person named
> "ronrieger" on 12/30/2008. He described how he downloaded free software
> from
> www.SUPERAntispyware.com, ran it and found the trojans that other programs
> failed to find AND better yet, it removed them! Then he went back to
> WUAUSERV and was able to set the Automatic Updates entry to "Start" and
> the
> problem was resolved!
>
> I give all the credit to "ronrieger". I repeated his suggestion and it
> worked! I would suggest that Microsoft inform ALL it's Windows users that
> this is a quick and easy solution to the Automatic Windows Update problem
> and that it is an excellent software which Microsoft should recommend to
> the
> hundreds or thousands of users experiencing the same problem. It would
> save
> thousands of manhours of work and frustration to your users. Thanks again
> to
> ronrieger and the creators of SuperAntispyware.com. I will indeed make a
> voluntary donation to these people. Obviously they have a superior
> product!

Thank You so so much,!!! I did exactly what you wrote and it work.

"DrJoeJr" wrote:

> I've experienced the problems all of you have been having with the Automatic
> Windows Update feature on Windows XP. After doing some research online I'm
> convinced that it must be cause by a virus. I scanned my machine and found
> that I had several of them.
>
> Searching for information on how to remove the series of "Vundo",
> "Virtumonde" and "Smithfraud-c" trojan viruses from my computer. I tried
> Microsoft Onecare.live site and downloaded the software. It located some of
> the viruses but did NOT remove them... much to my disappointment! One of the
> viruses prevented Automatic Windows Update from operating and it would not
> allow the Automatic Updates to be set from the Microsoft Windows XP Security
> Center.
>
> I searched the Microsoft.com Communities Newsgroups and found that there
> have been several hundred people who experienced the same problems cause by
> this "Vundo" virus family. I tried many of the solutions proposed by various
> contributors... some by Microsoft employees, but none of them worked. I tried
> Spybot, Norton 360 and AdWare SE... they did not work either.
>
> The saving grace was that I found buried a post provided by a person named
> "ronrieger" on 12/30/2008. He described how he downloaded free software from
> www.SUPERAntispyware.com, ran it and found the trojans that other programs
> failed to find AND better yet, it removed them! Then he went back to WUAUSERV
> and was able to set the Automatic Updates entry to "Start" and the problem
> was resolved!
>
> I give all the credit to "ronrieger". I repeated his suggestion and it
> worked! I would suggest that Microsoft inform ALL it's Windows users that
> this is a quick and easy solution to the Automatic Windows Update problem and
> that it is an excellent software which Microsoft should recommend to the
> hundreds or thousands of users experiencing the same problem. It would save
> thousands of manhours of work and frustration to your users. Thanks again to
> ronrieger and the creators of SuperAntispyware.com. I will indeed make a
> voluntary donation to these people. Obviously they have a superior product!
> --
> DrJoeJr

Iris,

Hurrah for you, Iris. It was very, very simple to do. No thinking required.
That's the part I liked! Hope everone else sees this solution to a very, very
messy and frustrating experience.
--
DrJoeJr


"iris" wrote:

> Thank You so so much,!!! I did exactly what you wrote and it work.
>
> "DrJoeJr" wrote:
>
> > I've experienced the problems all of you have been having with the Automatic
> > Windows Update feature on Windows XP. After doing some research online I'm
> > convinced that it must be cause by a virus. I scanned my machine and found
> > that I had several of them.
> >
> > Searching for information on how to remove the series of "Vundo",
> > "Virtumonde" and "Smithfraud-c" trojan viruses from my computer. I tried
> > Microsoft Onecare.live site and downloaded the software. It located some of
> > the viruses but did NOT remove them... much to my disappointment! One of the
> > viruses prevented Automatic Windows Update from operating and it would not
> > allow the Automatic Updates to be set from the Microsoft Windows XP Security
> > Center.
> >
> > I searched the Microsoft.com Communities Newsgroups and found that there
> > have been several hundred people who experienced the same problems cause by
> > this "Vundo" virus family. I tried many of the solutions proposed by various
> > contributors... some by Microsoft employees, but none of them worked. I tried
> > Spybot, Norton 360 and AdWare SE... they did not work either.
> >
> > The saving grace was that I found buried a post provided by a person named
> > "ronrieger" on 12/30/2008. He described how he downloaded free software from
> > www.SUPERAntispyware.com, ran it and found the trojans that other programs
> > failed to find AND better yet, it removed them! Then he went back to WUAUSERV
> > and was able to set the Automatic Updates entry to "Start" and the problem
> > was resolved!
> >
> > I give all the credit to "ronrieger". I repeated his suggestion and it
> > worked! I would suggest that Microsoft inform ALL it's Windows users that
> > this is a quick and easy solution to the Automatic Windows Update problem and
> > that it is an excellent software which Microsoft should recommend to the
> > hundreds or thousands of users experiencing the same problem. It would save
> > thousands of manhours of work and frustration to your users. Thanks again to
> > ronrieger and the creators of SuperAntispyware.com. I will indeed make a
> > voluntary donation to these people. Obviously they have a superior product!
> > --
> > DrJoeJr

Do you work for Superantispyware or a related company, Dr. ?
Methinks you have some kind of angle pushing that particular software,
methinks. I've cleaned Vundo from at least 25 systems simply by running
the OneCare scanner, MBAM, FixPolicies, and ComboFix. They *all* were
totally cleaned up and AU was functioning.
Nothing was left in the HijackThis scans.

You did run an HJT scan after cleaning the systems with SAS, right ?

MowGreen [MVP 2003-2009]
===============
*-343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
===============


DrJoeJr wrote:

> Iris,
>
> Hurrah for you, Iris. It was very, very simple to do. No thinking required.
> That's the part I liked! Hope everone else sees this solution to a very, very
> messy and frustrating experience.

MowGreen,

Sorry, I'm retired and work for nobody! I did not find this software...
someone else did. The Onecare scanner took literally several hours to scan my
system. It identified the viruses, but did NOT remove it or fix the Windows
Update problem! The product I reffered to ran in about 10 minutes. It seems
to be a real clunker. I looked at ComboFix and it was too complex for me.
Glad they worked you. I'm sure there are other products that work...I took
the advice of someone else and it worked very quickly for me. Let others make
their own decision.

I used Microsoft Onecare, SpyBot, Adware-SE after the fix and they all
proclamed my system free of viruses. Why don't you try the product and then
run SAS to find out if it highjacked your system and report back to this
site. I don't have time to waste fooling around with viruses...I just want
something that works!
--
DrJoeJr


"MowGreen [MVP]" wrote:

> Do you work for Superantispyware or a related company, Dr. ?
> Methinks you have some kind of angle pushing that particular software,
> methinks. I've cleaned Vundo from at least 25 systems simply by running
> the OneCare scanner, MBAM, FixPolicies, and ComboFix. They *all* were
> totally cleaned up and AU was functioning.
> Nothing was left in the HijackThis scans.
>
> You did run an HJT scan after cleaning the systems with SAS, right ?
>
> MowGreen [MVP 2003-2009]
> ===============
> *-343-* FDNY
> Never Forgotten
> ===============
>
>
> DrJoeJr wrote:
>
> > Iris,
> >
> > Hurrah for you, Iris. It was very, very simple to do. No thinking required.
> > That's the part I liked! Hope everone else sees this solution to a very, very
> > messy and frustrating experience.
>

DrJoeJr,

Since the latest variant of Vundo, Vundo.h, includes a rootkit, I
wouldn't put all my eggs in the SAS basket, so to speak.

Personally speaking, if Vundo.h was the detected variant then the system
can not be Trusted. If it wasn't that specific variant and the infection
was cleaned up quickly rather than allowing it to fester and download
other malwares to the system, I'd *still* run a HijackThis scan to see
if anything was 'left over'.

But, it's your system and if you think it's clean by scanning with the
programs you posted, more power to you.


MowGreen [MVP 2003-2009]
===============
*-343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
===============


DrJoeJr wrote:
> MowGreen,
>
> Sorry, I'm retired and work for nobody! I did not find this software...
> someone else did. The Onecare scanner took literally several hours to scan my
> system. It identified the viruses, but did NOT remove it or fix the Windows
> Update problem! The product I reffered to ran in about 10 minutes. It seems
> to be a real clunker. I looked at ComboFix and it was too complex for me.
> Glad they worked you. I'm sure there are other products that work...I took
> the advice of someone else and it worked very quickly for me. Let others make
> their own decision.
>
> I used Microsoft Onecare, SpyBot, Adware-SE after the fix and they all
> proclamed my system free of viruses. Why don't you try the product and then
> run SAS to find out if it highjacked your system and report back to this
> site. I don't have time to waste fooling around with viruses...I just want
> something that works!

Thank you so so much, Dr.Joe!!!

I have a school computer and the automatic updates wasn't working. I tried
everything, and then I found this. I'm so glad it works again. Thanks so
much!!!

Katrina,

Due to the nature of the malware causing AU to fail, it *behooves* you
to have someone else check to see if there's a hidden component still
resident on the 'school computer' so that it can be Trusted.

If you need some pointers as to how to do that, just ask.

MowGreen [MVP 2003-2009]
===============
*-343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
===============



Katrina Greske wrote:

> Thank you so so much, Dr.Joe!!!
>
> I have a school computer and the automatic updates wasn't working. I tried
> everything, and then I found this. I'm so glad it works again. Thanks so
> much!!!

MowGreen - I have had this horrible Trojan become resident on my computer
also (it also deleted my restore points) and I believe it has a "Root Kit"
because I have also used several anti-virus/Spyware programs including Super
Anti-Spyware (SAS) and it DID NOT get rid of this Vundo Variant and its
several twin brothers. They would all find, block and quarintine everything,
but when I would reboot, I still had all my problems and I would rescan and
lo and behold everything was back, even though my logs showed that they are
quarentined. I now have 4 different quarintines with this Trojan. Short of
finding someone that can hook up my HD as a slave and pull off my files I
need to keep, and then doing a full wipe & restore, I don't know how else to
deal with this. Unfortunately, this trojan is causing my desktop icons to
vanish everytime I am rebooting and loading my user profile, so I am
incapable of doing virtually anything except working with Task Mgr or
sometimes getting online through IE. Would you know of anything else besides
doing a full resore that I my be able to do? I am someone who knows some
things, but not too much, but I am a good learner!

"MowGreen [MVP]" wrote:

> DrJoeJr,
>
> Since the latest variant of Vundo, Vundo.h, includes a rootkit, I
> wouldn't put all my eggs in the SAS basket, so to speak.
>
> Personally speaking, if Vundo.h was the detected variant then the system
> can not be Trusted. If it wasn't that specific variant and the infection
> was cleaned up quickly rather than allowing it to fester and download
> other malwares to the system, I'd *still* run a HijackThis scan to see
> if anything was 'left over'.
>
> But, it's your system and if you think it's clean by scanning with the
> programs you posted, more power to you.
>
>
> MowGreen [MVP 2003-2009]
> ===============
> *-343-* FDNY
> Never Forgotten
> ===============
>
>
> DrJoeJr wrote:
> > MowGreen,
> >
> > Sorry, I'm retired and work for nobody! I did not find this software...
> > someone else did. The Onecare scanner took literally several hours to scan my
> > system. It identified the viruses, but did NOT remove it or fix the Windows
> > Update problem! The product I reffered to ran in about 10 minutes. It seems
> > to be a real clunker. I looked at ComboFix and it was too complex for me.
> > Glad they worked you. I'm sure there are other products that work...I took
> > the advice of someone else and it worked very quickly for me. Let others make
> > their own decision.
> >
> > I used Microsoft Onecare, SpyBot, Adware-SE after the fix and they all
> > proclamed my system free of viruses. Why don't you try the product and then
> > run SAS to find out if it highjacked your system and report back to this
> > site. I don't have time to waste fooling around with viruses...I just want
> > something that works!
>