Brand new XP rebuild. App dumps occuring. Entered Safe Mode, run Avast 5 -- "Unable to start scan. There are no more endpoints available from the endpoint mapper."
After adding anti-virus program (como) install which crashed after update and 2nd scan. (some other strange program behavior occured earlier like a window staying on top of another just loaded program.) I tried to open the dump file indicated in C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\temp\fce2_appcompat.txt but I was unable to print or save the file (definite sign of malware).
So I ran some other tools from well known antivirus companies and found "ARTEMIS!(followed by random hex numbers)". All scanners ran fine in regular Windows XP mode and never found a virus including Avast 5.0.
This was after a fresh reinstall with very few programs installed and very few website visits. ARTEMIS must have a loader that's not being detected by any malware scanners with possible delayed load. I suspect it's getting in either via network drive or one of my program (Office 07, Adobe mainly) installs has a parasite.
Did not find Win32:Malware-gen but HAVE found it on my other PC.
If you have more clues on removing this malware and hidden loaders, please let me know.