When I start my computer, I see a strange icon I don't recognize in my system tray. It is picture of a cowboy with an orange face and a white cowboy hat.
It shows up for just a few seconds during start-up, then vanishes. If I try to doubleclick it, My Computer opens. If I right click it, it disappears.
It usually disappears within about 10 seconds after it appears.
Does anyone recognize this?
you can do one thing. you can check your startup program what was start with you os. go run and type msconfig. click startup tab. I think u can see it here. or if it run after disappear you can find out in process tab of windows task manager.
you can do one thing. you can check your startup program what was start with you os. go run and type msconfig. click startup tab. I think u can see it here. or if it run after disappear you can find out in process tab of windows task manager.
This does not identify which process goes with the icon.
I do not have control yet when I first see it.
I was really wondering if someone recognized the icon.
hey take a picture of it, with the print/screen key and save in mspaint as a jpg, then go to image shack (http://imageshack.us/) and post it her so we can see it, and maybe we can help u better.
I tried that. But the icon appears before I have control. The icon is already gone when the screen is captured.
This happens as soon as the Windows desktop appears, before the keyboard and mouse do anything.
The icon is just the head of a cowboy (orange) in a white 10 gallon hat.
Could this have anything to do with initializing my Cisco router, my Siemens DSL modem, or my AT&T DSL account? The icon started appearing about the time I bought the router.
Other thoughts I had include Windows Defender, the flash drive I am using for a network drive, and one of my media players.
how about safe mode, and disable everything on the startup , and restart see if it comes up, if doesn't go back to msconfig and start checking one by one til it appears again, keep track of the programs you are checking back on.
I found it.
It's my new digital camera's interface package.
The icon is badly distorted when it's shrunk down to the mini size to fit in the tray. It is so unlike the desktop icon that I didn't recognize it.
The "cowboy hat" is the logo of the company. The "man's face", the "green grass" behind, and the "blue sky" are actually a shrunken version of a rainbow of color surrounding the logo.
It goes away quickly when the camera isn't connected.
It stays put when I connect the camera.
I think they tried to fit too much into the icon.
No, I didn't find it
It has a similar look, but I saw the original icon today, and it was different.
Clues:
- It does not appear every boot cycle. I rebooted again 4 times after I saw it, and it wasn't there.
- I tried capturing a screenshot of it the first time it appeared today, and didn't get it in time. It disappeared before I could get my hands to the keyboard.
- This is weird, but when I watch the icons appear and disappear in the system tray, they appear in a different order every time.
- I searched the computer for all .ico files. It was not there.
- The correct icon does not have any colors except a thin black outline, an orange circle, and a white background.
- The icon for the camera also appears sometimes during boot. I was thinking they were the same icon for a while. They have never appeared together.
- The general shape is:
- - Centered at the top is the black outlined white "crown of the hat" that looks like a parabola opening downward.
- - Under that is the outlined wide "brim" that goes clear across the icon, consisting of a very thin black-outlined white ellipse.
- - Centered under that is the filled in orange circular "face" the same width as the crown. It might be elliptical in the vertical direction.
- - There are no facial details - just solid orange.
- - Near the bottom is a black line straight across that I thought was the top of the "shoulders." The face rests on top of it
- - There is white under the black line for the "shoulders" themselves.
Question: It's the pc acting up, is it giving you headaches, like thing are not doing what they are supposed to be doing and so on, if it is, just be caefull and run combofix,http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix.
good luck, let us know how it went.
I am not having any trouble. I just wondered what the icon is.
then take a picture with a camera, and post it here. now I really want to know what is it too.
I did the msconfig startup search, looked at files in their locations, and checked the icon of each of the items. None of the items had an icon that matched this mystery icon.
It shows up only about once a week.
More on the image. The cowboy has an eyepatch on the right side of the orange circle in the image.
The icon stayed a while this time, but disappeared when I pressed the control key to take the snapshot.
Now I have another mystery. There is a process named 1 in the startup list. The path is also just a 1. The location is in the registry.
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
I did the msconfig startup search, looked at files in their locations, and checked the icon of each of the items. None of the items had an icon that matched this mystery icon.
It shows up only about once a week.
More on the image. The cowboy has an eyepatch on the right side of the orange circle in the image.
The icon stayed a while this time, but disappeared when I pressed the control key to take the snapshot.
Now I have another mystery. There is a process named 1 in the startup list. The path is also just a 1. The location is in the registry.
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
trojan related ,me thinks .
try malwarebytes
Hi,
I agree with caperjack but I would also download and run Ccleaner after a full scan with malwarebytes. If you still have the problem after that, go to trend and download and run Housecall.
I figured out the "1" process.
I did it myself three years ago, to keep a "greedy" piece of software from automatically starting itself. If I deleted it from the startup list, the software just put it back the next time it ran. So I edited the registry instead, putting the 1 into the executable file position. I had forgotten it.
I need that software, but my music studio software also needs the computer to be free of extraneous processes.
When the software runs, it checks to see if the startup registry entry is there, but doesn't check to see if the executable filename is valid. So I fooled the software, keeping it from putting itself back in the auto start list.
This trick has no adverse effect on the computer. The computer can't find the path "1" when starting, so that process dies.
On the icon issue, there are no adverse effects from the icon, and neither Symantec nor Defender has detected it as malware in the 6 months since I first noticed it. Since it appears only once a week, I am thinking it is an updater for some piece of software I have.
It first appeared about the same time I got the digital camera and the router.
I used to have software that showed me every icon in the computer, and its filename and location. But it ran on Windows 3.1. Is there something like that for Windows XP?
Hi,
You can have the best antivirus software and run it 1000 times and not detect some viruses. It will never hurt to download the malwarebytes and Ccleaner. At least you will then be fairly sure that you have a clean machine.
I just thought of a known cowboy that might fit my case:
The Cisco Kid
I have a Cisco router.
It seems to be appearing on Tuesdays. At least it did so the last three weeks. But it also appeared last Friday.
I need to know a lot more about any piece of software that I would download and install on my computer, especially if it runs all the time. Too many pieces of software run all the time. I can't use my music studio software when these are running.
And there are entirely too many programs that get upset if the Internet isn't available. That's why I had to block that one program from starting. If I pulled the Internet cable out to do some serious recording without the antivirus eating up time scanning the result, it constantly opened dialog boxes complaining about it until the Internet connection was restored.
then take a picture with a camera, and post it here. now I really want to know what is it too.
That sure didn't work.
My digital camera is too ready to save power. While I tried to watch for the icon, the camera turned itself off. It takes several seconds to turn it back on. The icon didn't appear, but if it had, the camera would not have gotten it.
Also, the camera does not have the resolution needed for a shot from at least 3 feet away. If I get closer, the image is out of focus because the lens is fixed focus. Either way, the small icons in the notification area become blurs. I can see the desktop icons, but not the little ones.
Also, my camera waits 1 second before taking the shot. It is likely the icon would have disappeared before I pointed and shot. And I have to tell it that I don't want the flash just before the shot, taking several seconds more.
I HATE menus on cameras. My last analog camera also had menus. I would prefer knobs that don't turn themselves back to "standard".
The two programs, malwarebytes and ccleaner can be downloaded and run just once and then uninstalled. Ccleaner will only ever run if you run it but if you leave malwarebytes on your computer with protection enabled, it will run in the background like a virus detector looking for possible problem activities. You can run it and an antivirus program without conflicts.
I got it! It stayed long enough to take a picture.
It was a result of my hurry, which is why the icon never appeared when I was diligently searching for it.
"Network Drive Not Found."
When I was in a hurry, I turned on only the computer I needed to do a quick email check.
When I was doing the detailed search, the entire network was powered up. So the icon didn't show up.
I discovered its true nature when I used Paint to paste the icon, and went into zoom to align it.
It WAS related to the router. Before I had the router, I didn't have a network drive. I installed the network drive in the other computer at the same time I installed the router. But it wasn't the Cisco Kid.
When shrunken down, the "Network Drive Not Found: icon looks like a cowboy. See the attached illustration:
In the upper left corner is the system tray notification area of the computer. The icons are:
- Lexmark printer driver
- Symantec antivirus
- "The cowboy icon"
At the right of that is the icon I thought was the "other cowboy icon".
Then I blew up both of the "cowboy" icons and pasted them underneath:
- The "Network Drive Not Found" icon
- The driver icon for my camera
It is a case of too much scrunch in the icon to make it fit the system tray.
It also explains why Windows Explorer opened when I doubleclicked the cowboy icon on the left.
boy,if any of them icons looks like a cowboy,cowboys in your are must dress driferent that the ones in my area .smoke any good weed lately .lol
It is picture of a cowboy with an orange face and a white cowboy hat.
The icon is just the head of a cowboy (orange) in a white 10 gallon hat..
The "cowboy hat" is the logo of the company. The "man's face", the "green grass" behind, and the "blue sky" are actually a shrunken version of a rainbow of color surrounding the logo.
More on the image. The cowboy has an eyepatch on the right side of the orange circle in the
icon looks like a cowboy. The icons are: "The cowboy icon"At the right of that is the icon I thought was the "other cowboy icon".Then I blew up both of the "cowboy" icons and pasted them underneath
Do you have any idea how many people have spent a lot of time trying to find your "Cowboy"?
I have given you the site of some good eye doctors, I think you need a lot of help. lol
http://www.eyedoctorguide.com/
EDIT:- There were 799 views of this thread.
Do you have any idea how many people have spent a lot of time trying to find your "Cowboy"?
It's only because the resolution is so low when the icon is shrunk to the size used in the notification area (system tray), and because it persisted for only a second or two.
I don't need an eye doctor. Higher resolution is needed in the system tray. It was totally impossible to tell what that icon was, based on the image I had on my monitor. Windows reduced the image to only 16 pixels in each direction.
I am using a CRT monitor, so there is quite a bit of blur when the icon is that small. That is a matter of lack of budget, not eyesight problems.
The square of the drive blurred into the cowboy hat. The red X blurred into the face and neck. And the pipe blurred onto what looked like shoulders.
Here is an approximation of what I saw. Remember that it was there for only a second or two, and that it was half this size (a quarter of the area):
Mushroom, atomic bomb explosion, not a cowboy...
Not to matter now, it is finished and the eye doctor was a joke OK
I think you need a lot of help. lol
Here's what the image looked like to me.
The left image is the original icon, enlarged and blurred to the amount of blur I saw. The right image is a reconstruction of what my brain did with the blur. And I saw the other icon as a cowboy afterward, because I was watching for the cowboy image.
The subjective reconstruction of a fuzzy image by the brain is often dependent of previous experience. This is why too many people turn ordinary objects at a distance into UFOs. In my case, there were cowboys and cowgirls in my family when I was a kid.
And I had never seen either icon before in any context. Both were new icons.
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