services.exe error after OOo crash

[stuck]

ACER laptop running Vista Gold. Never been patched because it is a stand alone machine with no connection to anything (no network, no internet - nothing).

Using OpenOffice 3, which crashed. On re-booting a series of three dialogs appeared, as 'OK' (the only option) is clicked on each:

1) Could not load or run 'C:\User\name\Local' specified in the registry. Make sure the file exists on your computer or remove the reference in the registry.

2) Could not load or run 'Settings\Application' specified in the registry. Make sure the file exists on your computer or remove the reference in the registry.

3) Could not load or run 'Data\asdlfj3\services.exe' specified in the registry. Make sure the file exists on your computer or remove the reference in the registry.

The laptop finished booting. The sidebar was missing but apart form losing a note from the notepad, it seems OK on re-opening it. OpenOffice seems OK as well.

If I log in as another user the laptop is fine, no errors.

A Google search on 'asdlfj3 services.exe' doesn't turn up much. Any wisdom here?

stuck

[fizban2]

is there any anti-virus/malware on the machine? have you done any scans?

[joontje86]

something mightve been transferred trough a removable media (usb stick/external hdd) Check if you can find anything matching your errors in msconfig or hijackthis

[Mr Snrub]

The 3 messages report "specified in the registry", so you should be able to run regedit and search for a part that should be unique - I would go for asdlfj3.

Also, I would guess that this is a single registry entry that is not surrounded by quotation marks (so gets treated as separate strings) - if you piece together the 3 strings you get:

C:\User\name\Local Settings\Application Data\asdlfj3\services.exe

Finally, you state that logging on as another user does not report the errors, so I would suspect the rogue registry value lives under an HKEY_USERS key (mapped as HKEY_CURRENT_USER when logged on as that user).

I guess the value ought to be surrounded by quotation marks and/or this is dodgy - the only services.exe I know of is the Service Control Manager (SCM) which is part of the OS and not stored in individual user profiles...

[stuck]

Thanks for the feedback and sorry for my delay in responding, I was expecting an email notification of replies but haven't had any.

Yes, I installed and ran Avira and it found and quarantined 2 instances of an autorun worm. It didn't fix the registry though.

Yes again, I found a line in the registry and it is under current_user. I've not deleted it yet but I will. I'm going to run a ccleaner scan first to see what it picks up.

Yes again, the infection came via a USB stick (not my fault, someone else to blame!), that's been sorted too.

[stuck]

Just to let you know that ccleaner didn't find the rougue lin ein the registry so I deleted it manually. Laptop boots with out incident again.

Now I not stuck!

Except I am but you know what I mean.

stuck