What the ****?

[Pilgrim]

I have been using my PC for the last few hours without any problems, about ten minutes ago one of my security programs started going nuts about new startup items.
It appears that from I know not where a number of Windows services have been installed and started?
The ones I caught the names of were SNMP Service, SNMP Trap Service, IPV6 Helper Service.
The first two were set to automatic and manual respectively and are now both disabled with no apparent ill effects.
The third explains itself so I have left it running. There might have been more but they were the only ones I caught.

The point is that I have automatic updates set to notify only, I have not downloaded anything to install these services and not the faintest idea where they came from, in fact at the time I was using Word.

Has anybody else had this happen or any idea what the hell is going on?

[paf]

Pilgrim, I can't help you, that never happened to me... sorry. Good luck.

[Bluedot]

did you check your pc for infection?

[Pilgrim]

Having just looked at several websites about SNMP I still have no idea what it does exactly and according to what I read it was never part of XP anyway.
What I did learn was if you go to Add or Remove Programs\Windows Components\Management and Monitoring Tools you can uninstall it, which I have done.
That still does not explain why it suddenly popped up earlier or how it got there.

The IPV6 Helper Service is something I seem to remember from some time back and as far as I was aware it has been running ever since.

The only network connected issue that I have been having is that the proxy provider I use has had both their servers and their website up and down all day but I cannot see how that would cause what happened.

Another one of XP's little mysteries no doubt.

did you check your pc for infection?

Not even a rogue cookie.

[Raymond]

All my computers are fully on Windows 7, so I can't really check if my XP has those service turned on.
As in Windows 7, they are disabled.

Although those service are legitimate, but for them to automatically turn on by themself out of no where seems a bit weird. Do you by any chance have a USB modem or some kind of hardware from your ISP that might have auto update feature?

[A Guy]

Do you use Comodo? It updated yesterday, and is tossing a few prompts for programs it had been taught before. Perhaps that is it?

A Guy

[Networx]

May be a full system scan do some good. Or use system restore to a point where it was working fine.

[Pilgrim]

Raymond.

No to both, I moved from a modem to a router about a year ago and although it was supplied by my ISP it uses Netgear software, I am sure of that because I have updated it myself in the past. When I realised several years ago that I did not actually need it I deleted all ISP software from the PC.
The only software that I have which updates automatically are a number of security programs which only update definitions, and one VPN which last updated a couple of weeks ago and I was not using it at the time this happened anyway so it was disabled, as was the OpenVPN adaptor it uses. Everything else is either manual or, like MS updates, set to notify only.

A Guy.

I do use Comodo, v2.4.18.184. As you will gather from the version number it is not set to update automatically.

Networx.

The computer is working fine and since I deleted the SNMP Services they have not come back.


The warnings when they appeared were from WinPatrol which normally reacts pretty fast so the Services must have only just appeared as startup items when it happened.
IPV6 Helper Service I am pretty sure was already installed, if I remember correctly it was an MS update several months ago, that does not explain why it should suddenly cause a warning recently?

I have tweaked this computer considerably and two of the things I did was go through the Windows Components and remove what I did not want and go through the Services list disabling or removing what I did not want from there. One thing that I am certain of is that the last time I checked the Services, which wasn't very long ago, SNMP did not appear.

According to Black Viper SNMP is not installed in XP but I have just checked the i386 folder from the Windows Installation Disk which I have on a second internal HD, and the installation files for SNMP are in it, which still does not explain why they suddenly got installed?