Earlier today i got a virus at work that was pretty bad, changing the background on my desktop and slowing down my machine incredibly, while pulling up popups telling me to download and buy some bogus antivirus program. I approached the problem like i normally do by running MalwareBytes, which usually kills anything that trips my computer up. It got rid of the virus, but said that my computer needed to be restarted in order to complete the cleaning process. i let it restart, and have not been able to logon since. Every time i hit enter after entering my username and password (same thing happens for the administrator account) it gets to "Executing: C:\\WINDOWS\system32\wlnotify.dll..." and will not go past. Also, the same thing happens if i try to start in safe mode. can anyone please offer some kind of advice? i've spent hours googling the problem to see what other people did, but most of the time people said that wlnotify.dll only slowed their logon/logoff process, and didn't inhibit it completely.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks
-Matt
yes, unfortunately i did try booting up with my last known good configuration, but it didn't seem to do anything differently. It still stopped at wlnotify.dll
The thing that i'm most afraid of is a complete system restore... even if i could just get into the hard drive and retrieve the information i wanted to keep, that would be better than simply clearing the entire hard drive.
- Matt
It could be that wlnotify is having trouble with damaged accounts. Can you enter Administrator in Safe Mode? If so, create an account with another name. Try to start into that, if it works copy over your files.
It could be that wlnotify is having trouble with damaged accounts. Can you enter Administrator in Safe Mode? If so, create an account with another name. Try to start into that, if it works copy over your files.
Hey Gerbil - long time, no see! :)
That's not a bad idea. If that is a no go, perhaps recovery console? Or maybe popping the hard drive into another PC as slave?
I think there are plenty of options to recover data before a format.
I wonder if that last run of MBA-M borked something.... It certainly would not be unprecedented.
PP :)
I'm orright, PhilliePhan... you still eating the cheese? :))
Go the Phillie Phlyers... or... I dunno...
Yeah, re the MBAM run, I seem to have done it too, to someone's sys... it broke after a run and he has not come back.
Well, as it turns out I've had to just plug the hard drive in externally to a different computer and extract all the files I want to keep so can just wipe the thing clean. Since I couldn't log on ever, I had a tech friend help me out and we ran multiple virus programs over the HD, cleaning anything and everything we could find in vain, since every time we tried to reboot with high hopes, my comp. still was getting hung up on the same wlnotify.dll, never getting past that step. I was almost at the point of making animal sacrifices to appease the Dell Gods, but I soon realized that whether or not any blood is shed in their names, my computer was doomed. This is the first virus I've run into that has taken me down to the last straw forcing me to wipe the harddrive, and I must say, it certainly was a nasty one! We had a good run though, thanks anyways for all your help guys, I really do appreciate it.
Happy hunting,
-Matt
thanks anyways for all your help guys, I really do appreciate it.
You're welcome, Matt.
Sorry we couldn't be much help, but glad you could recover your data before nuking the drive..
PP :)
Try ALT-TAB. It worked for me.
What? ALT-TAB is what looks at other windows. I looked carefully after three times and realized I had a popup right before the above notify dll thing. Well, it was waiting for me to press OK, but that window was no longer there. I tried ALT-TAB, the window came back, I pressed OK, and then vuala, I got to log in.
Try ALT-TAB. It worked for me.
What? ALT-TAB is what looks at other windows. I looked carefully after three times and realized I had a popup right before the above notify dll thing. Well, it was waiting for me to press OK, but that window was no longer there. I tried ALT-TAB, the window came back, I pressed OK, and then vuala, I got to log in.
Ulmo, take a look at the date of this original post, May 2009. No point in posting in 6 month old threads.
Ulmo, take a look at the date of this original post, May 2009. No point in posting in 6 month old threads.
Thats wrong actually, i got this link through google , and regged just to say thanks to Ulmo , as i have a similar problem and by alt-tab i can see i have a pop up from logon screen.
so thanks ulmo and keep replying to threads no matter how old, as they are all serachable in google...................................
thanks again.
We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.