axphx.exe

[old dog]

my sister inlaw is having all sorts of trouble with her laptop. I cleaned over 260 entries with Spybot, 300 with Ad-aware, AVG found 10 trojans, and Housecall found 2 more. After all this I still had popups. The only thing running that could not be identified is axphx.exe, listed in system processes. I deleted the entry for it in the regestry and deleted it in the win/system32 folder. Som far no popups. Does anyone know what this is?
Marty

[j4ck]

Hmm, I know that "aphex.exe" is an executable used by GameSpy Arcade...but that is not what you are talking about.
Have you tried a search for the file to discover what folder it exists in? That might give you a clue as to what it is.

Also, see if she is willing to use the Mozilla Firefox browser, it has a built in popup blocker that works well.

[old dog]

The only 2 places I can find it are in the Windows/System32 folder and in the regestry set to run on startup. Browsers dont make any difference the program seems to look for any internet connection and starts the popups as soon as you log on. I cannot find any thing on it searching Google, or Symantec.
Marty

[glc]

It's easy enough to export the registry key before deleting the entry and throw the file in the recycle bin - if it breaks something you can put it back easily enough.

[old dog]

StopZilla is the only thing that recognized it, classified as Spyware/Adware. I have deleted the 2 entries for it, every thing seems OK so far.
Marty

[j4ck]

I apologize, Marty. I didn't realize that you had pinpointed the executable as the source of popups (of course Firefox wouldn't have made a difference!). I'm glad you got to the bottom of the matter.

However, you may decide to still suggest the Firefox browser to your sister-in-law to provide her with a more secure browser in the future.

Cheers
:)

[old dog]

No need to apologize any help or thoughts are appreciated. I have suggested Firefox and even installed it to no avail. As soon as she finds her restore disk I will reinstall everything.
Marty