Rundll 32

[Dan Gerous]

I have been wanting to contact a few organisations, but whenever I try to send my message I get a window opening wanting me to run" Windows host process (Rundll32)". I gaggled it, but I couldn't make head nor tail of it. Can anyone give me a simpletons guide to what it does. I particularly want to avoid giving anyone access to my computer for advertising/spam by running this programme. Is this safe to use?

[Mike-Bracknell]

Rundll32 (the real one) is part of Windows. However, in normal operation nothing should be asking you whether you should be running it. This makes me think you've either got a virus, or you've got an overly intrusive antivirus package (or firewall?).

If you tell us a little more about the popup window you see, we might be able to help further.

[BOAC]

A little more info, Dan? Which OS, and whether you are trying to send via email or a web page as well. If email, which email programme? Normally the 'call' is because something is either not installed correctly or has 'uninstalled' itself, but you are right to be cautious as MB says.

[Dan Gerous]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v382/toom317/Rundll.jpg

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Windows 7 is my operating system. The most recent occurence of this message was when I was trying to contact a site on the government site. The above screen shot is the message I am getting, but I've had it before, particularly with a couple of major shopping chains web sites.

[Mike-Bracknell]

This is a feature of protected mode browsing in IE - it's basically designed to stop webpages from being able to instruct IE to start a program on your computer, and hence is a security feature.

Your problem is therefore either:

i) You are being prompted for instances of rundll32.exe by the website because the website is hacked
ii) You are being prompted for instances of rundll32.exe by the website because your security settings have been mis-set
iii) Both of the above

This website should help you with (ii), and you can then revisit the offending website and see if (i) (and hence (iii)) is true or not.

http://unlockforus.********.co.uk/2008/07/vista-how-to-reset-ie-security-warning.html

[BOAC]

You need to replace the ***** with b*l*o*g*s*p*o*t (without the * this time.) It's one of Danny's games he plays.

[Milo Minderbinder]

I doubt if its a hack
More likely IE is corrupted, or a plugin is playing up
Protected mode can be a real pain in the butt
I'd guess at an out of date Java VM given its a government site. Reset IE to its defaults, uninstall all instances of Java, and then reinstall the newest version

[Dan Gerous]

Thanks for the help , I'll try those and see what happens.