Win98 Gone Queer

[raslin]

Over the past few days my Windows/temp folder has masses of empty .tmp files and a thing that calls itself winb313.exe.

Thanks for any ideas about how to get rid of them all.

[Jamie]

I don't think winb313.exe is a virus or anything like that. Have you tried reinstalling windows? Remember, microsoft no longer supports Win 98 so maybe it's time to upgrade to XP.

[Crossy]

Delete all the .tmp files and rename the .exe to something innocuous (just in case it's important so you can get it back).

Re-start the system and see if the .tmp files come back if not QED

winb313 doesn't give any hits in Google or the major virus databases so I don't think it's a nasty.

As noted above, time to consider an upgrade. If your hardware won't run XP at least try Windows 2000, more stable and still supported by MS at least partially.

[cdnvic]

It's actually a fairly common worm with many names, but varieties of 313.exe is the identifying factor.

Info:

http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyc...EFU&VSect=T

How to fix:

http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyc...<deleted>&VSect=Sn

Then for the sake of your data, upgrade to an OS that's supported. 2000/XP/Vista/Linux/osX/etc

Edited June 18, 2007 by cdnvic

[Jamie]

Interesting, I tried google and yahoo and nothing came up. Tried the McAfee site with virus definitions and nothing came up.

[cdnvic]

They mutate so often that a literal search string doesn't always work.

[Crossy]

They mutate so often that a literal search string doesn't always work.

Good point Old Bean, at least our OP now has a pointer to the problem

[Berty]

I'm surprised people still use WIN98!

[cdnvic]

Still about 2-4% of my web traffic (98/me)

[raslin]

Thanks CNDVIC for pointing me in the right direction. Got Process Explorer and no trace of 313.exe anywhere from it a regedit. But it and I did not like two lots of IPMON and got rid of them both. So far so good.

When I get a new PC later this year I shall have 2000 going, XP has too many problems with old software. I am quite happy to write letters using Amipro!

After four hours I'm about to quite now and will make a final report tomorrow.

[pampal]

I still have a machine running win98, but not connected to the internet

I keep it going for nostalgia

[Jamie]

Win98 actually was a pretty good OS. I went from that to ME regrettably, then XP which was good. I am now using Vista which I like so far.

[Tywais]

Still about 2-4% of my web traffic (98/me)

I have Win98 running on a couple of machines at the lab here, however I set it up to run under XP using VMWare because the users didn't want to lose XP and dual-booting is a bother. Reason for Win98, some Physics simulation applications will only run under native Win98.