Task manager shows explorer eating up tons of RAM (28,580 K). I've run a number of programs, and it seems that I have Virtumonde adware on the system. I've run VundoFix and VirtumundoBeGone with no success. I've also run ewido anti-spyware, Spybot and Ad-aware, and while all but Spybot specifically picked up on it and fixed the problem, the problem still persists. (I've also run all of the programs and repaired in safe mode with no luck). The problem seems to be related to two entries in Hijackthis with the filename 'mllmn.dll' (O2 and O20) - while I've checked those off and hit the fix button , they re-appear on the next scan. Short of reformat / reinstall, are there any ideas on how to fix this? Thank you, Paul

Have you tried running msconfig, startup to see if something nasty was autostarting in there? Keepsakes for Keeps http://www.pctec.ca/

Thanks, I just looked through the startup and the worst I can see is dumprep 0 -k, which looks normal. A google search for everything else either showed that it was required or I recognized the program running it (i.e. AVG).

Have you turned off system restore, scanned and fixed the problem? Turn it back on when it is removed. Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

Yes, I tried that. It turns out I needed a program called combofix (http://www.techsupportforum.com/sectools/combofix.exe) to solve the problem. After running Combofix, I was able to delete the HJT entries.

Thanks for posting back, also thanx for the info Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

This is a very common problem for XP users. i have spent many hours browsing the net to find the elusive answer to this problem including no help from microsoft who blame spyware or a virus. i have found that this was in my case caused by explorer trying to access file details from some avi and mpg files which were in a format that XP can not read. it just keeps trying and trying while your cpu usage goes up to 100% and your box is now a useless ornament. one way to prevent this is to delete a registry key called inproc server. To correct this misbehavior in Windows XP, click start, run, type regedit and enter. browse to the following location and remove the registry key. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}\InProcServer32 This will prevent Explorer from loading shmedia.dll in response to file property queries on these files. This will not effect your ability to play files, get file attributes, or even view thumbnails. Say goodbye to all explorer.exe 100% CPU issues. hope this helps all of you who are suffering the pain i had for almost two weeks. my system now runs like an olymic sprinter. Alan Kunshan