What is wupdater?

1. Lately, when I start up my computer, it gets "stuck" as it appears to be loading the Lotus SmartSuite. When I hit "control-alt-delete" to bring up the task list, it shows that something called "wupdater" is "not responding". When I hit "End Task", the computer resumes loading (or whatever it is doing) and I can then operate it normally.

What is "wupdater" and how can I fix this?

2. This may or may not be a related issue. Very recently, an error message pops up and says "Wtoolsa -- This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shutdown" or something like that. I hit "O.K." or I close it, and a few seconds later it will pop up again. And then, if I am creating a document in Word Pro, the computer will freeze, after which I'll get an error message saying that "Word Pro has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." Word Pro then shuts down, and I lose some of the changes to the document.

HELP! (thanks in advance; I enjoy listening to your show).

This question was answered on May 28, 2004. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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1.wupdater.exe is a spyware program that may have installed with n-CASE, iGetNet, and KeenValue.exe these programs were created by eUniverse these programs generate popup ads and may hijack web searches wupdater.exe seems to be a background update task i think that you should remove this file you'll probably find it in C:\Program Files\Common files\updater\wupdater.exe you can remove it using WinPatrol.

2 have you run ad-aware? If not download the new version of Ad-Aware if you have Ad-Aware already then make sure that it is the new one and always go online and update it before you run it after installing ad-aware and before running the program you first update the reference file following the instuctions that i will give you now the intructions under ad-aware 6 > Settings (Gear at the top) > Tweaks > Scanning Engine check: "Unload recognized processes during scanning." under ad-aware 6 > Settings (Gear at the top) > Tweaks > Cleaning Engine: check: "Let Windows remove files in use after reboot." press "Scan Now"

- Check option "Use Custom scanning options"

- Check option "Activate In-Depth Scan"

- Press "Select drives\folders to scan"

- Select the active partition which is usually C:

now press "Next" to let ad-aware scan your drives it will find a number of spyware files and registry keys right click in that pane and choose "select all" now press "Next" again it will ask you if you want to take off all checked items click Ok finally close ad-aware and reboot.

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Posted by michael of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on May 28, 2004

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