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re: Right click Context Menu Gone Sunday, July 11, 2004 at 8:48 pm Posted by Donna R (437 messages posted) start, settings, taskbar and start menu, advanced--in the first section, enable dragging and dropping should be checked. then next to the last thing on the see if there's a check by display shortcut menu on right click. there should be. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Right click Context Menu Gone Sunday, July 11, 2004 at 8:57 pm Posted by Jack Gulley (5917 messages posted) That sounds more like a new browser hijack program of some sort that has gone bad. Have you ran CWShredder. Any experience using Hijack This to find Malware? First, make sure your ADAware was up to date and that you were doing a full Custom scan of all options you can enable. Be aware that it often takes two to three weeks for them to include removal of new CWS browser hijackers. (If you can not access the latest updates, you may have to download the reflist.ref file on a working system, copy to a diskette and replace the existing one in AdAware.) Try the following. Boot into SAFE MODE and run the full ADAWARE scan. (It will be slower, but it can clean things quicker in Safe Mode). Also run a full update Anti-Virus scan if you have one from Safe Mode. If you don't have an AV program installed and updated, try to get a copy of Stinger.exe and transfer it on diskette and run in Safe Mode. While in safe mode, check that Automatic Updates in Control Panel is still disabled, then bring up IE and in its Options, Advanced tab, under Browsing, make sure its Automatic updates is also disabled. Then in the Add/Remove programs, look for a "Critical Update Notification" addition. Remove it. Then check the MSCONFIG Startup tab for an entry for a WuCrtUpd entry and disable it. It is possible that the wauboot has been hijacked by some Malware program. There has only been only one Windows update for ME systems released in many months. That was the ADODB.stream (KB870669) IE Security update (you really need it) release July 2nd. You should try going to the Windows Update site and check that it is installed. Then look at the Installation history and see when your system installed it. See if that was a valid wauboot from an automatic update. (Something could have just gone wrong and corrupted your system.) Then reboot and see what happens. If you can run an online virus scan at HouseCall and all the checks you can access. IF no "self-help" Joy, THEN download CWShredder and the Hijack This program. Run CWShredder and then learn how to run Hijack This program and save its run log to a C:\HJT folder. With this tool in hand and its output, go to the SpywareInfo web site and forums and seek help there. They are experts at tracking down new threats and strange ones like this, but you need to do what you can first and have the Hijack This log handy. For links and general help on this type of problem see my: page. It will get you started in the right direction and give you quick links to programs and the SpywareInfo site. Expect this to take some time and stay with who ever helps you from the SpywareInfo forums. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Right click Context Menu Gone Saturday, July 17, 2004 at 7:16 am Posted by Rick (9 messages posted) I have already checked for that those are properly checked but the problem still exists! It seems that while windows is initializing a sceret little task bar appears and is minimized to the lower left hand side of the screen where the star button is. I am able to gain drag and drop capabilities when I end the exlporer task after boot up. I do this by the ctrl-alt-del pop up menu. This regains me drag and drop capabilites but loses me other functionalities I used to have. To me it seems my explorer.exe file has been corrupted or patched! The problem is intermittent almost predictably so! I have discovered an executbale program that is part of my registry auto run list called MHSTA.exe that allows string variables to invoke it. This would allow for intermittent problems to incur by changing the definitions of these stack variable! They are both shell open registry entries which of course means they affect explorerer performance. Does anyone know of the importance of MHSTA? I am about to brave deleting them from my registry after creating a restore point! On Sunday, July 11, 2004 at 8:48 pm, Donna R wrote: >start, settings, taskbar and start menu, advanced--in the first section, enable dragging >and dropping should be checked. then next to the last thing on the see if there's >a check by display shortcut menu on right click. there should be. > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Right click Context Menu Gone Saturday, July 17, 2004 at 7:38 am Posted by Rick (9 messages posted) I have run the cool web shredder and nothing was found by it. I had used "fix this" awhile back but experienced some problems with it and unistalled it. I will try re-installing it and see if this will fix the problem! I have scanned my system wit pest patrol which seems to be more powerful then Adaware and I am using AntiVir Personal Edition for Virus protection and I am constantly checking for updates and re-running these programs every time I find one. What I have discovered that seems new to me is a regisrtry run entry that invokes MHSTA.exe with two string variables that capture what is loaded into stack memory! THis explains to me the intermittent occurences of this virus and why it seems to affect explorer performance! I am going to attempt to delete these registry entries after creating a restore point. I whill wait for some time to see if anyone can explain to me the necessity to keep those registry entries. On Sunday, July 11, 2004 at 8:57 pm, Jack Gulley wrote: > That sounds more like a new browser hijack program of some sort that has gone >bad. Have you ran CWShredder. Any experience using Hijack This to find Malware? > First, make sure your ADAware was up to date and that you were doing a full Custom >scan of all options you can enable. Be aware that it often takes two to three weeks >for them to include removal of new CWS browser hijackers. (If you can not access >the latest updates, you may have to download the reflist.ref file on a working system, >copy to a diskette and replace the existing one in AdAware.) > Try the following. Boot into SAFE MODE and run the full ADAWARE scan. (It will >be slower, but it can clean things quicker in Safe Mode). Also run a full update >Anti-Virus scan if you have one from Safe Mode. If you don't have an AV program installed >and updated, try to get a copy of Stinger.exe and transfer it on diskette and run >in Safe Mode. > While in safe mode, check that Automatic Updates in Control Panel is still disabled, >then bring up IE and in its Options, Advanced tab, under Browsing, make sure its >Automatic updates is also disabled. Then in the Add/Remove programs, look for a "Critical >Update Notification" addition. Remove it. Then check the MSCONFIG Startup tab for >an entry for a WuCrtUpd entry and disable it. > It is possible that the wauboot has been hijacked by some Malware program. There >has only been only one Windows update for ME systems released in many months. That >was the ADODB.stream (KB870669) IE Security update (you really need it) release July >2nd. You should try going to the Windows Update site and check that it is installed. >Then look at the Installation history and see when your system installed it. See >if that was a valid wauboot from an automatic update. (Something could have just >gone wrong and corrupted your system.) > Then reboot and see what happens. If you can run an online virus scan at HouseCall >and all the checks you can access. > IF no "self-help" Joy, THEN download CWShredder and the Hijack >This program. Run CWShredder and then learn how to run Hijack This program and >save its run log to a C:\HJT folder. With this tool in hand and its output, go to >the SpywareInfo web site and forums and seek help there. They are experts at tracking >down new threats and strange ones like this, but you need to do what you can first >and have the Hijack This log handy. > For links and general help on this type of problem see my: > >border="0"> page. It will get you started in the right direction and give you >quick links to programs and the SpywareInfo site. > Expect this to take some time and stay with who ever helps you from the SpywareInfo >forums. [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows Me Discussion Forum