I need some advise please

[flygirl]

I noticed in the task manager a file named: wuauclt.exe, and I google for the file name and some sites says wuauclt.exe is a trojan or a virus , so Im confused. Can you guys help me on this tough subject?

[oldman]

Could you provide a little more info? OS and where the file is located.

You could also submit the suspect file to VirusTotal, an online multi engine scanner and see if anything is detected.

http://www.virustotal.com/xhtml/index_en.html

[sasin44]

check this link
http://xona.com/2004/08/26.html
this should either clear ur question or totally alram u....
once u have read the information provided in this link
PROCESS EXPLORER.. it is a way better software than task manager..moreover it gives all the running processes AND the location from which this process is running..by making a note of  the location from which the process is running u'll be able to tell if u have a torjan or not 
link>>  http://www.snapfiles.com/download/dlprocessexplorer.html

[flygirl]

System:                                                                                                   Microsoft Windows XP Version 2002 SP2,                                                        Computer:                                                                                                Intel Pentium III Processor                                                                           930 MHz, 256 MB of RAM.                                                                            I performed a search and I found two files with the name wuauclt.exe:    C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch and one in C:\WINDOWS\system32.                                                             

[DavidR]

The one in the prefetch folder is used to provide the disk location (so the system doesn't have to search for the file) of the file to speed the loading of the file.

But this should be a .pf file and not wuauclt.exe ?

My copy of wuauclt.exe is in the system32 folder, winXP Pro.

[flygirl]

The one in the prefetch folder is used to provide the disk location (so the system doesn't have to search for the file) of the file to speed the loading of the file.

But this should be a .pf file and not wuauclt.exe ?

My copy of wuauclt.exe is in the system32 folder, winXP Pro.

                                                                                                    Yes it is a .pf file. I don't think I wanna get rid of these files then. Thnx.

[DavidR]

No, because they are required, if you are ever concerned about a file check it out.

Check the offending/suspect file at: VirusTotal - Multi engine on-line virus scanner I feel virustotal is the better option as it uses the windows version of avast (more packers supported) and there are currently 32 different scanners.
Or Jotti - Multi engine on-line virus scanner if any other scanners here detect them it is less likely to be a false positive.