Computer Hope
Microsoft => Microsoft Windows => Windows Vista and 7 => Topic started by: lizziet on February 03, 2010, 12:45:42 PM
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Hi, This is my first post and I'm hoping someone can help me! I use windows vista on my laptop and everytime I log in a white box appears at either 5 past or 35 past the hour. The white box stays in the background but appears in front of all my programs every half an hour. If I click or right click on it nothing happens, and it's not coming up as anything when I look in the task manager.
Could it be from any programs I installed and can I get rid of it? Please help!!
http://i751.photobucket.com/albums/xx157/lizzietheirishgal/Whitebox.jpg
I screenied it.
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Sorry should have mentioned, I have a Dell inspiron 1318. I'm not sure how much RAM etc. it has, I'm a bit of a technology dummy!
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Go to START - RUN and type msconfig (press ENTER). On the general tab choose Diagnostic Startup and reboot. Does the white box continue to appear? Let us know and we'll give you the next steps to take.
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Thanks for your reply. The box didn't appear when I was in the diagnostic start up but when I went back into the normal start up it appeared again.
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Okay. Download Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel. Run it. Uncheck all startup items on all tabs and reboot. Does the box appear?
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Sorry when you say reboot does that mean I run the diagnostic start up again? I'm sorry I just don't have a great understanding of computers!
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No, just uncheck all the startup items with Startup Control Panel and restart the machine.
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Ok when I try to uncheck everything it says "There is already an enable/disabled item with this name. Please rename enabled or disabled item" e.g when I disable bluetooth, it unchecks it but then bluetooth appears below it, checked. I can't disable the second bluetooth. This happens with everything I uncheck. Is it supposed to?
Sorry again to be so annoying!
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Just uncheck those items you can.
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Ok I did that and the box is still appearing
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Okay. You can put checks back in the startup items now.
You're not going to like this, but here goes. When we did the diagnostic startup in msconfig we disabled pretty much everything from starting. The box did not appear. When we kept the startup items from loading it did. So what you can do is the following:
1) Open msconfig
2) Choose "selective startup " (uncheck everything)
3) Start adding items back one at a time, rebooting after each, until the problem recurs. You will then know which process is causing the problem
It's a lengthy, time consuming process, but it may be the best way.
Just one other thing you can try first though. Run full scans with both your anti virus utility AND MalwareBytes just in case it's some form of malware. If it is, we can avoid the msconfig process.
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Or we can find out what process the white box belongs to.
One program that can help is Microsoft Spy++... MS took the download link down a while ago but I still have it:
here (http://www.bc-programming.com/downloads/spy.zip)
Just unzip it somewhere, and run spyxx.exe; (or spyxx_amd64 if you are running a 64-bit version, but the 32-bit version works in either one anyway).
If you get an error about the application configuration being incorrect, you'll need the Visual C++ 2008 redistributable:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9b2da534-3e03-4391-8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf&displaylang=en
Once you've managed to start it, and you have the white box, you'll need to do the following:
1. select from the menu "Spy->Find Window"
drag the "finder tool" icon over the white box, and release.
Click "OK" in the finder tool dialog.
you should get a "Window properties" dialog. Ignore the gibberish and select the "process" tab, and click the underlined "process ID" value.
The "Module name" item here will reflect the base filename (usually) of the program that is creating the mystery white box; this can help guide you as to which startup items to select and not select.
Then again, it might be faster to just go with Allan's advice and just work through each one progressively; I just thought I'd throw in an alternative.
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Thank you. I used the spy program and I now know the name of the program running the white box. I can't find it anywhere, so I don't know how to shut it off. It's called "dellcommunications"_BCONTWNDCLASS_dellcommsbigbcont.
Is there any way to disable it?
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Go back to Mike Lin's Startup Control Pane. Do you see any entries from Dell? If so, please post the name(s) here.
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There is a dell comms in HKLM/Run tab. That's probably it. But when I disable it, another dell comms appears below it and it won't let me disable that.
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Okay. Let's use msconfig to temporarily disable the startup item. If there are no negative effects we'll make the change in the registry. Open msconfig again and this time go to the startup tab. Uncheck the Dell app. Click on Apply, OK and then restart the system.
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I can't find the dell app in the system configuration.
I'm so sorry about this and I'm really grateful for your help.
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It's on the STARTUP tab
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It's not on the start up tab.
I found the file but it says it's a VBscriptfile (?) and it's located in a file called temp. If I delete it the icon goes but the white box stays.
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Okay, now you lost me. You found the file where? What icon are you deleting? What do you mean it's in a file called temp? Now I need to take your time and explain it so I can understand it. Thank you.
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Ok sorry.
I found the file that contains the white box. It's called DELLjob. When I searched for it and clicked it the white box came up, confirming that this is the file we're looking for. I right clicked it and went to open file location. This is where it brings me.
http://i751.photobucket.com/albums/xx157/lizzietheirishgal/Delljobpic.jpg
When I delete the file, the white box remains. I hope this is clear, I don't really know how else to explain it.
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Disregard - see the post below
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Okay, I think we've got it. Go to "Programs & Features" and uninstall the Dell Support Center. You may have to kill the process in Task Manager before it will uninstall
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Ok so just to be clear (I'm really really sorry about this, I just don't have a brain for technology!!) I uninstall the Dell support center but cancel the uninstallation?
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Huh? No - Uninstall Dell Support Center. If there is a problem uninstalling it let me know.
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THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!
It worked!!! :):):)
I am very very grateful for your help and if I could do anything to repay you I would!!
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You're very welcome Liz. Sorry it took so long to figure it out.
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Uh oh... Bad news... It reappeared!
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is it the same script file?
any chance you can attach that script to your next reply? I'm curious what Dell would be doing putting a script in the temp directory and what exactly it could be doing that they think is so important.
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Here's my take, BC: It's supposed to be bringing up a reminder to register. For some reason, instead of running every few days it was running every half hour. And apparently the registration reminder was corrupt and only displayed a white box. Uninstalling the Dell Support SHOULD have stopped it.
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Sorry, I don't even know what a script file is!
This is what comes up when I use spy on it
http://i751.photobucket.com/albums/xx157/lizzietheirishgal/SPYwhitebox.jpg
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Go back into msconfig. Do you see supportsoft sprtcmd or supportsoft? If so, uncheck them.
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Yep that worked! Thanks Allan!
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OK. Did those items appear in Startup Control Panel? If so, re-enable them in msconfig and delete them from Startup Control Panel. That's the preferred method of doing things (msconfig should really only be used for diagnostic and troubleshooting purposes). Otherwise, just leave it as is - won't really hurt anything.