Thanks for the input Ken, there are four copies of svchost.exe on my PC,
identical in size but different time stamps, see list derived from attrib and
dir in CLI. I used the one in the dllcache folder to replace the system32 copy.
BTW tried the others and same result, also system restore fails because that
doesn't replace svchost.exe
C:\>attrib svchost.exe /s
C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386\svchost.exe
A C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache\svchost.exe
A C:\WINDOWS\system32\SVCHOST.EXE
C:\>dir svchost.exe /s
Volume in drive C is PC_No_1.
Volume Serial Number is 6458-9F33
Directory of C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$
04/08/2004 01:56 14,336 svchost.exe
1 File(s) 14,336 bytes
Directory of C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386
14/04/2008 01:12 14,336 svchost.exe
1 File(s) 14,336 bytes
Directory of C:\WINDOWS\system32
16/07/2010 18:34 14,336 SVCHOST.EXE
1 File(s) 14,336 bytes
Directory of C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache
19/03/2009 20:07 14,336 svchost.exe
1 File(s) 14,336 bytes
Total Files Listed:
4 File(s) 57,344 bytes
0 Dir(s) 216,816,939,008 bytes free
This is going off on a big tangent and members please accept my apologies but I
have to respond to your "huh!", plenty of MSDOS apps were designed allowing
user info to be embeded in executables or libraries; DBase 2 and 3, Paradox and
Flexiguard (boot controlling app) immediately come to mind. Serial numbers,
owner ID, custom logos etc could be incorporated. The original file would stay
the same size but its time stamp changed. A suitable block of blanks is
replaced with meaningful data. As an example at the uni I worked for Norton 2
replaced core commands in COMMAND.COM like copy, del, md or rd with our secret
equivalents to thwart mischievous students and irresponsible staff; as long as
replacement commands were the same length as originals, MSDOS didn't wimp about
it.
Regarding Firefox not playing vids, Youtube has a white screen for movie to
play and no prompts, Flixy has a black screen for movie to play and states I
need to upgrade flash plugins etc - which of course makes no discernable change.
Richard
~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
