Wildtangent.. Really Messing Up My System.

[mogadishu]

Whenever I try to scan the wildtangent directory.. C:/WINNT/wt/wildtangent, I get his dun dun.. dun dun.. from my harddrive and my whole system freezes up. It sounds like when your C Drive is full and you are starting up and it has to work really hard to start up windows. Anyway, I uninstalled wiltangent, but there is still stuff in the folder. I've scanned it with Norton, AVG, and the NOD32 Paul made. It makes the noise and freezes my pc every time. If I leave it for 30 min it skips the wildtangent driver and at the end of the scan says it wasnt able to scan it. Same happens when I do a system scan with spybot. I tried to manually delete the folder but the same thing happens, even when im only right clicking on the folder. Then my system freezes indefinitely with the sound going the whole time. I have to restart then.

I know this sounds really bizarre, but if anyone has any ideas about what I can do, please respond.

Thanks,

Mogadishu.

[balamm]

format c: and never, ever install crap like that again! I thought it was a well known fact.

[mogadishu]

Originally posted by balamm@29 December 2003 - 17:02
format c: and never, ever install crap like that again! I thought it was a well known fact.
whoa.. im not about to format c.., is there anyway else i can fix it? And i thought wildtangent was trusted, i downloaded it when i was playing nikegridiron.com...

[Mik3ll]

I would try contacting them.

If you have Nero, you can try to delete it in the burning rom.

[muchspl2]

I here good things about bonzi buddy also
/sarcasm

[mogadishu]

heh.. no but really, id like to think im pretty on top of avoiding spyware etc., and i truthfully thought that wildtangent was just something that helps run online games. I think msn.com uses it for their games, and i downloaded it when nikegridiron.com said i needed it to play the game at that site.

[shn]

wildtangent drivers can screw up any system. Dont install crap like that.http://smilies.sofrayt.com/%5E/f/offwall.gif

[mogadishu]

Originally posted by shn@29 December 2003 - 18:23
wildtangent drivers can screw up any system. Dont install crap like that.http://smilies.sofrayt.com/%5E/f/offwall.gif
ok, you have all made it clear that what i did was stupid....

what i really need to know is what to do, preferrably not formating c:

[balamm]

I remember doing something like this years ago before I knew better. I really don't think you'll ever get all of it out. All you can do is maybe go into safe mode and delete from there, then run checkdisk. Your registry is fucked, nothing you can do about that. You'll have to live with it till you reinstall everything.

[mogadishu]

ok, i mean its not that much of a problem, everything seems to still works, but it would be nice to get rid of it.

I'll do a fresh install in a couple weeks, so then it should be gone.

Do you know if the stuff it left in the registry and C:\WINNT will actually screw my system up or will it just get errors when I try to scan it?

Thanks again.

Mogadishu

[ninjamonkey]

try using spy sweeper. just google it.
i think it finds wiltangent things and deletes them.

[balamm]

As I recall, it does interfere with other drivers and programs. Kinda takes over things at random. It's truly evil. It also calls home, you might want to check on that.

[mogadishu]

Originally posted by balamm@29 December 2003 - 19:34
As I recall, it does interfere with other drivers and programs. Kinda takes over things at random. It's truly evil. It also calls home, you might want to check on that.
im guessing ur joking about the calling your home part.. but its actually getting really annoying..

AVG Resident Shield keeps popping up these warnings that say something like


Virus
Trojan horse Dropper.Swicer.A

is found in file
\Device\HarddiskDmVolumes\PhysicalDmVolumes\BlockVolume1\Tmp\Rem1B0.exe

To remove this virus, please run AVG for Windows

When I try to scan using AVG, I always run into the wildtangent problem, but even after it has skipped those files, it can't find anything like it just reported. I am a bit confused by this. If the Resident Shield found it, why cant the scan find it? I have had quite a few of these warnings pop up recently. I have run 3 dif AV's and none have found anything.

[balamm]

No, it calls home. It's home. It makes regular calls back to report on your PC activities. That is the purpose of the thing overall. The rest is just candy.

If your AV reports a virus or trojan, it should be giving you the file and folder name. Go into safe mode and delete the sucker. Then do your scan again.

[muchspl2]

you seem to have problems, plural :lol:

k, you need to run avg in safe mode, turn off system restore and boot in safe mode
run avg and spybot S&S and/or adaware

[ninjamonkey]

try spysweeper!
i scanned with spysweeper and it found wildtangent stuff and allowed me to delete it. (i didnt delete it as i have no need to)

[muchspl2]

Originally posted by ninjamonkey@29 December 2003 - 19:49
try spysweeper!
i scanned with spysweeper and it found wildtangent stuff and allowed me to delete it. (i didnt delete it as i have no need to)
:blink:

[mogadishu]

Originally posted by balamm@29 December 2003 - 19:46
No, it calls home. It's home. It makes regular calls back to report on your PC activities. That is the purpose of the thing overall. The rest is just candy.

If your AV reports a virus or trojan, it should be giving you the file and folder name. Go into safe mode and delete the sucker. Then do your scan again.
yea it only says


\Device\HarddiskDmVolumes\PhysicalDmVolumes\BlockVolume1\Tmp\Rem1B0.exe

not a location that i can go to.

Ill try starting up in safe mode and running spy sweeper and avg, but i wont be able to go in and manually delete the trojan/virus cus I dont know where it is.

[balamm]

what you can do is search that name Rem1B0.exe exactly and when it comes up, nuke the bugger.



(ninjamonkey @ 29 December 2003 - 19:49)
Guy likes wild tangent :lol:
hey buddy, did you know you can run Bonzai Buddy and comet curser and KMD and Gator and Ezula and toptext and all your other favourite programs in VMware ? Yeah, it's true! they made it specially for that. You won't have all that Windows OS crap messing with those fine apps then. No way, keep them sweet programs virgin pure ;)




http://members.shaw.ca/wenpigsfly/smileys2/puking.gif

[ninjamonkey]

ha. i havent deleted it becuase i have had no problems and i think it is necessary to have when playing some games.

[muchspl2]

try banzai buddy then, I here it holds all your passwords and fill out forms so you don't have to, must be great :lol:

[ninjamonkey]

:blink:
maybe i dotn understand wiltangent. whats so bad?
it came installed on my comp when i first got it.

[mogadishu]

thanks for the tip balamm.. i should have just searched for the individual file instead of the trying to find the folder it was in. Very silly on my part.

and thanks ninja, spy sweeper did find the wildtangent stuff and i am dealing with it now.

Mogadishu.

[Marius24]

WTF is wildtangent :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink:

[mogadishu]

wait.. this really sucks.

Im removing all the spyware spysweeper found and the only one it cant remove is wildtangent. It scans the files, which take about 5 minutes each with the noise coming from my harddisk i think... then say i have to remove them manually..
when i go to the folder to remove them manually i hit delete then i get the noise and it freezes for a couple minutes.. then the error:

Cannot delete wildtangent.jar: Error performing in page operation.

Any ideas?

[Mik3ll]

I would email them. So try that.

[Project E-01]

Here's something to try if your file system is FAT16 or 32 - make a win98/95 or Ms-Dos boot disk, start into dos mode, and Deltree the file. Its a little trick is used to use all the time to nuke stubborn files like that.

Im not sure if it could easily be done on an ntfs system though, if its possible to start up to *just* the command prompt you could try a deltree from there, or just a normal del, but ive got a sneaking suspicion that its not easy to do under 2k or XP.

[balamm]

No, don't email them. Go into your control panel and security options. Look for "clear page file on shut down" It'll take a while to do this the first time so be patient while it clears. Before you restart, set a real low limit on the page file. Just enough to run the system. 300mb maybe?

Restart in safe mode and you should be able to pick out the pieces of this virus crap.
Have you run chkdsk /r yet ? give it a try and see if some of the problems lessen.

[balamm]

Originally posted by Project E-01@29 December 2003 - 18:44
Here's something to try if your file system is FAT16 or 32 - make a win98/95 or Ms-Dos boot disk, start into dos mode, and Deltree the file. Its a little trick is used to use all the time to nuke stubborn files like that.

Im not sure if it could easily be done on an ntfs system though, if its possible to start up to *just* the command prompt you could try a deltree from there, or just a normal del, but ive got a sneaking suspicion that its not easy to do under 2k or XP.
booting from an XP or win2k CD gives you that option. You just select the repair option instead of install, then go to the command prompt.

[muchspl2]

need to deleat all the wt programs in task manager
a quick google turned up
wcmdmgr.exe
GameChannel.exe

[ninjamonkey]

alright, so whats so bad about wildtangent? my anti-virus hasnt picked it up. and ad-aware didnt pick it up.

[ninjamonkey]

also, check this out to try to remove it. http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/libra...ent/index.phtml (http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/library/wildtangent/index.phtml)
and http://www.pestpatrol.com/PestInfo/W/WildTangent.asp

[balamm]

Originally posted by ninjamonkey@29 December 2003 - 18:50
alright, so whats so bad about wildtangent? my anti-virus hasnt picked it up. and ad-aware didnt pick it up.
Anti virus and anti trojan makers are not legally allowed to call this a virus or create applications that will remove it. You accept a legal waiver when you install, that you acknowledge it will behave in a virus or trojan like manor. Case closed, all legal and nice for it's creators.

[muchspl2]

yes I remember reading some of the read me files someone posted awhile ago in another forum, pretty funny wording of the eula

[balamm]

I think there was a pretty major spyware removal program that was forced to shutdown because of this last year. They refused to comply with an order to rewrite their software and chose to give it up instead.

Was it spybot that got sued a few months ago for having gator or something in it's spyware list?

[muchspl2]

I herd something about it but I thought it was ad aware, I just skimmed past it at slashdot

[Project E-01]

Lol... as far im concerned, Gator is a bloody virus. :)

[balamm]

I took Gator apart once just to see how evil it really was. Not suprising to me at all, it has a cache of phony windows error messages built in to make it seem as if windows desparately needs every part of it to survive and your an idiot if you even consider removing it.

I suspected this when I got error messages while trying to uninstall it, but no mention of any errors in my sys logs.

[mogadishu]

Originally posted by balamm@29 December 2003 - 20:44
No, don't email them. Go into your control panel and security options. Look for "clear page file on shut down" It'll take a while to do this the first time so be patient while it clears. Before you restart, set a real low limit on the page file. Just enough to run the system. 300mb maybe?

Restart in safe mode and you should be able to pick out the pieces of this virus crap.
Have you run chkdsk /r yet ? give it a try and see if some of the problems lessen.
im running win2000 and i dont see security options in the control panel.

[balamm]

open administrative tools, it's there. local security policies.

[mogadishu]

ok thanks i got it. now i just have to set the pagefile and try and restart in safe mode.

[mogadishu]

Originally posted by balamm@29 December 2003 - 22:51
open administrative tools, it's there. local security policies.
ok i did everything u said, still got the disk noise and freeze up when i clicked on the folder or file, and an error when i tried to delete it.

[balamm]

well your off to dos then. Throw in your Xp disk and boot to repair mode. Delete it from there and if successful, run a diskcheck.

[mogadishu]

ok.. i assume i do the same with win2000?

[balamm]

Yes they are the basically same at that point.

If you can't get at it you could install a second temp OS and delete the file from there. If you have a free partition.

[mogadishu]

hmm ok, ill try and do this later. I have to locate the win2000 cd.

But thanks a lot for the help.. I have a lot less questions now thanks to you guys. Atleast I know what the real problem is etc.

Ill let you know if I can figure it out.

Oh and if anyone thinks of anything else, please post it.

Thanks.

Mogadishu.

[Nightwolf]

Originally posted by ninjamonkey@29 December 2003 - 20:55
also, check this out to try to remove it. http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/libra...ent/index.phtml (http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/library/wildtangent/index.phtml)
and http://www.pestpatrol.com/PestInfo/W/WildTangent.asp
Thanks for that link to PestPatrol, ninjamonkey! I was searching for something to remove WildTangent from my mother-in-law's PC so I downloaded the demo from their website just to see how it is, and guess what - it found traces of WildTangent on my system! I had completely forgot about it, but many years ago I had installed one of their visualizations for Wimamp. As soon as I realized it included spyware I deleted it, and I always assumed Spybot got rid of the rest but obviously it didn't. PestPatrol also found a few other things that Spybot missed. I highly recommend this program as a supplement to Spybot and/or Adaware.

Incidentally, the free demo will only search your PC, but it won't let you delete anything. To do that you'll need the full version which you can find on eMule or Suprnova (and probably K-Lite, but I didn't search there so I don't know).

One word of caution, if you remove everything that it finds it will make both K-Lite and eMule no longer work. But that's easily remedied by simply reinstalling them.