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Author Topic: Windows 7 a virus?  (Read 3048 times)

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MIKEMAC

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Windows 7 a virus?
« on: February 12, 2009, 02:42:42 AM »
hi I'm new here and sorry if this has been asked before but I duel booted vista 64 bit and windows 7 and when I ran a full scan of my pc under windows 7 in the (J) drive I set up it said the "pagefile.sys2" I belive was the full name was a trojon horse. This is a 6.2 gig file and the chest would not hold it no matter what setting I put the limit at and had to be deleted to the recycle bin. How could a windows file that I downloaded straight from microsoft have a virus? any idea why this is listed as a trojon horse and should I delete cause even if I leave in my recycle bin I get the warning all the time it's sitting there. What do you recommend? and funny enough when I scan in windows 7 no viruses, go figure.
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Offline Vladimyr

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Re: Windows 7 a virus?
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2009, 04:08:48 AM »
Hi MIKEMAC

I'm not currently a Windows 7 "guinea pig" so I too am making assumptions.
Firstly, a 6.2GB 'pagefile.sys2' isn't "a windows file that I downloaded straight from microsoft". (How big was the entire download? :o)
Assuming that it is the legitimate paging or swap file for W7, it's created/recreated each time you start W7.
The reason it's is not detected as a trojan when you scan in W7 is that the paging file is deliberately excluded from any scan because it must only be accessed by the OS (If you try to scan it manually you'll be blocked by the OS.)
So even if the "trojan" detection in Vista is false, if you allow avast! to delete the file from Vista, W7 will just create a new one when you boot into W7.
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“There is a way that seems right to a man,
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MIKEMAC

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Re: Windows 7 a virus?
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2009, 05:51:53 AM »
Quote from: Vladimyr on February 12, 2009, 04:08:48 AM
Hi MIKEMAC

I'm not currently a Windows 7 "guinea pig" so I too am making assumptions.
Firstly, a 6.2GB 'pagefile.sys2' isn't "a windows file that I downloaded straight from microsoft". (How big was the entire download? :o)
Assuming that it is the legitimate paging or swap file for W7, it's created/recreated each time you start W7.
The reason it's is not detected as a trojan when you scan in W7 is that the paging file is deliberately excluded from any scan because it must only be accessed by the OS (If you try to scan it manually you'll be blocked by the OS.)
So even if the "trojan" detection in Vista is false, if you allow avast! to delete the file from Vista, W7 will just create a new one when you boot into W7.


so it's cool to delete then?
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Offline Vladimyr

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Re: Windows 7 a virus?
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2009, 06:56:41 AM »
Yes. But if I were you I'd wait for someone with W7 beta to confirm my assumptions.
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“There is a way that seems right to a man,
       but in the end it leads to death.” - Proverbs 16:25

apass

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Re: Windows 7 a virus?
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2009, 06:43:52 PM »
Had the same problem with you when scanning the Windows 7 partition from avast in Windows Xp. Avast said that Sign of "Win32:VB-HWI [Wrm]" has been found in "D:\pagefile.sys" file.

Apparently it's a false positive detection. Read this thread
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