NW16.EXE, Why is it loaded?

[rynox]

First of all, I'm not experiencing any problems with my computer, but during some typical security checking on my computer I found something strange.

Performing a MEM /C on my Windows 2000 Pro SP 4 PC at home yields all the typical resident processes, MOUSE, MSCDEXNT, DOSX, REDIR. But I also have NW16 listed. A web search tells me NW16.EXE is the Netware redirector, but I don't use the Netware client nor have I ever used it.

I thought it was fishy, so I renamed the file from C:\WINNT\NW16.EXE to C:\WINNT\NW16.EX_ and rebooted. After rebooting the file has reappeared. Now I have NW16.EX_ & NW16.EXE both. NW16 still listed in MEM /C.

Can someone tell me what this is and why it's loading?

[craigt56]

Someone is watching you. Get EasyCleaner by ToniArts. It's a free program. Clean out your registry and all un-necessary files. Get Hijack This. It's a free program. Scan your system and toss anything that shouldn't be starting up. Reboot and you should be rid of that cyber trash...:thumbsup:

[tboss132]

www.iolo.com.
System Mechanic 5. Download 30 day fully functional version. Run it, it cleans the registry. You can monitor your start up programs and disable irrelevant ones. It has an inbuilt spyware catcher which i've found very useful. Everyday it discovers some new spy on my system. You also have lots of other useful features. At the end of 30 days, you can decide if you want to pay for the licence but i can assure you that not only will your system be faster, you'll also be rid of some "stubborn" spyware.

[rynox]

Thanks for the suggestions, but neither of the two programs you mentioned detected the file as malicious. I also scanned it with Ad-Aware, McAfee, Norton Security Center (From the website), McAfee Stinger, etc. Nothing caught it as being a threat.

I wanted it gone anyways, and since I am lucky enough to still have my Win 2000 partition on Fat32, I just booted to an old Win 98 boot disk and removed the file myself. Presto, NW16.EXE is gone and never came back.

Ryan