Shoutbox

I'm maybe overly paranoid but I am wondering why would the Windows File Protection dialog come up for no apparent reason? I didn't install anything yesterday, or change any system files or whatnot, and today when I came on the pc I found the WFP dialog sitting on my screen. :/

Since I couldn't bothered to look for my Windows CD, I just accepted it to replace the files, but I am worried it might have been a very wrong decision. Though, my firewall (Comodo) or Kaspersky (anti-virus) haven't complained. I did a Spybot scan and that came up clean, too. I don't really think it's likely that I have some virus/spyware thing going on, but it bothers me that I can't think of a good reason for the WFP dialog popping up.

Please halp.

well u can stop the msg from comin up

http://www.msfn.org/board/Removing-SFC-Files-t61107.html

with that but ya sometimes this will come in hand something is not right with ya system files of someshort are missing

Yeah, I don't want to stop it from coming up, I just want to know if there's a harmless reason it might come up even though I haven't done anything to prompt it.

Also, I just checked my firewall and anti-virus logs, nothing suspicious there.


Update: I installed SP3 (thanks Underlord!) and after that the WFP hasn't whined anymore. I even restarted once more after installing SP3 just to see if it would pop up again, but it didn't. *prays that it will stay that way* Also, good news is that SP3 didn't screw up my pc - nothing that I can see so far at least.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who helped.

Haz - checkin your FW/AV wont do anything its a system file that is messed up have u tryed a system restore back a day or 2?

quote:

---

Originally posted by bigb88
Haz - checkin your FW/AV wont do anything its a system file that is messed up have u tryed a system restore back a day or 2?

---

but it could be a virus changing the file,
and i think that was his concern

i just spent a week at a computer maintenance facility, and i wouldn't advise rolling back after an sp3 upgrade unless you have to, it may work, but you may stuff something more

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jarrod

quote:

---

Originally posted by bigb88
Haz - checkin your FW/AV wont do anything its a system file that is messed up have u tryed a system restore back a day or 2?

---

but it could be a virus changing the file,
and i think that was his concern

i just spent a week at a computer maintenance facility, and i wouldn't advise rolling back after an sp3 upgrade unless you have to, it may work, but you may stuff something more

---

yup u have a point there but he said he ran scans but also not all scans pick stuff up should try and online one panda/kaspersky/trendo but ya there is something goin on and he is not sure

um did u check the event viewer it will show to what is going on

quote:

---

Originally posted by bigb88

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jarrod

quote:

---

Originally posted by bigb88
Haz - checkin your FW/AV wont do anything its a system file that is messed up have u tryed a system restore back a day or 2?

---

but it could be a virus changing the file,
and i think that was his concern

i just spent a week at a computer maintenance facility, and i wouldn't advise rolling back after an sp3 upgrade unless you have to, it may work, but you may stuff something more

---

yup u have a point there but he said he ran scans but also not all scans pick stuff up should try and online one panda/kaspersky/trendo but ya there is something goin on and he is not sure

um did u check the event viewer it will show to what is going on

---

she installed sp3 and hasn't had it so i'd wait till it happens again

i also dealt with more infections on trend protected computers, than anything else we used avg, spybot and malwarebytes for the best results

New advice/comments noted. And Jarrod is right, I was more concerned about the file change being because of malware than anything else. Also, I'm not lying in my profile, I really am a girl.

lol u sayin that means nothing lol

quote:

---

Originally posted by bigb88
Haz - checkin your FW/AV wont do anything its a system file that is messed up have u tryed a system restore back a day or 2?

---

When you get a WPF, never do a system Restore. When a WPF comes up , it will already automatically attempt to fix what was wrong. Doing a system restore might simply put the error (in some cases virus) back on your system together with some other older stuff, which might be even worse. System Restore is seriously overrated and too much used for what it is not. System Restore should only be used when you don't have any other means of recovering a bad Windows installation. And only for that; to recover stuff before you will reinstall Windows again. It is not a backup tool.

--

Do not turn of the WPF message either. It is there for a very good (security) reason.

The reason it pops up is that some system file was corrupted. But this could have been since a very long time, but it was only needed now. So that might be a reason why you can't trace anything anymore in log files (eg: old, long gone virus/spyware). But such corruptions could also happen because of some HDD read error. And that shouldn't nessecarily be a problem either, sometimes a HDD has some hickups, it happens...

As long as you don't get WPF all the time you shouldn't worry about it much though.

Updating to SP3 shouldn't have been an 'option' either. You should have done that a long time ago already, it is mandatory. Goes for every Windows patch/fix. Especially if you connect to the net with that PC.