Findfast.exe virus?

[Cornish Jack]

Last few days the 'pooter' has been restarting on its own following a long series of virus warnings from Avast! that it suspects that Findfast.exe is 'suspicious and should be opened in the sandbox. Despite clicking the OK button and the terminate button, the Avast warnings continue and eventually lead to the restart.
I have tried to restore to a time when this didn't happen and ALL my restore points have gone.
There are 5 instances of the problem file indicated in Search - 1 in prefetch, 1 in MS Office and 3 in an archive folder.
Any thoughts as to likely problem and best solution, please?
TIA

[gas path]

Hi CJ Looks like its part of M$ Office. Had a quick search and found this: How to Remove Findfast.exe | eHow.com (http://www.ehow.com/how_5147186_remove-findfastexe.html)

[BOAC]

If you are happy for it to sit in your system, 'allow' it in Avast? I guess the latest virus or prog update has caused this - it started 'worrying' about a 'reminder' prog I use until I told it it was OK.

[Milo Minderbinder]

What version of Windows are you sing? Findfast was a utility in Win9X and as far as I'm aware was replaced with different technology in XP. Mainly because it was a PITA and used a lot of system resources
I'm casting back my memory now, but I think that Fastfind was ALSO installed when you installed older versions of Office, Microsoft trying to get in on the machine either way....


From the error message you are getting I assume you are running Version 7 of Avast. This has a problem with the sandbox technology in that Avast haven't "whitelisted" a lot of the old Microsoft programs. Office 2000 and Office XP are examples of genuine programs which throw this error.

My guess is that either
1) You have an old version of Windows (95/98/Me/2000)
or
2) An old version of Office (anything pre-2003)
or
3) You really do have a virus

If ether of the first two are correct, then allow the program to run normally - but my advice is to then disable it. The performance hit it creates isn't worth the gain
Disabling it is a two part thing - you have to stop the service and then delete the indexes. Just how depends on the version of Windows - and I'd need to refresh my memory from the resource kits before advising more

[Cornish Jack]

Thank you all. That's quite reassuring - the problem would appear to be MS Office Pro - something that I could well do without! From memory it is the 2007 version and my OS is Win XP. Presumably the first fix would be to uninstall Office and see if that does the trick.Since Open Office covers the same territory, that would serve as a substitute?
Thanks again.

[Cornish Jack]

... and, just a follow-up - have removed the prog -NINETY7, not 2007!!:uhoh: - never rely on memory!:ugh:
Will let you know if that sorts it.

[Milo Minderbinder]

Office 97 would make Avast 7 complain. Its definitely not on its list of "trusted" applications
Not sure if removing it will clear the problem - Findfast may need to be manually removed - its a tenacious beast

[Cornish Jack]

Thanks, Milo
Don't want to tempt fate, but so far today, no signs of Avast having a hissy fit or the extreme HD thrashing that accompanied the problem previously.:) Fingers tightly crossed

[Milo Minderbinder]

"extreme HD trashing"

Thats Findfast! Hammered the hard drive and pinched all the system resources, thats why it was always best disabled

IF its still on the machine there should be an icon in the control panel, from which you can cancel the schedule and delete the indexes. You still then need to disable the service from running by using one of MSCONFIG/Autoruns/Windows Management
However hopefully its gone