I have a system32 file question

[minicow]

I recently found this file on my computer c:\windows\system32\wwphf.exe. when I do a search I find no information on it and asks if the f is an s instead. and when I do online virus scans half says it is a trojan and the other half says it cannot be opened.

my question is what is this file and if it is a virus/trojan of some sort how would I remove it?

Thanks for any help you can provide in finding the answer to this.


edited to add this is on a windows xp

[krusher]

What OS?
Why do you suspect it?

Online virus scanners are not that effective.

[minicow]

it is on my windows xp, and in searches no information can be found, and when compared with another xp this file is not on any others. so since no information is found on it of yet I would like to what this file is to do. if there is no purpose to it then why should i have it on my computer? my reasoning is if there is no information to be found either by searches or from microsoft as to what this file is to do then it shouldn't be there.

I am well aware that online virus scans are not that effective which is why I use several in addition to what is on my computer. I just want to make sure that everything is cleared. call me paranoid but like I said if there is no info available on a file it shouldn't be in there.

[Play_The_0dds]

do you have a kodak camera or scanner?

[minicow]

no camera but do have a bearpaw scanner..............could it be associated with that?

[Play_The_0dds]

it is a very strong possibility, bearpaw is a mustek scanner and virus scanners, spyware scanners and many tech forum list the start up applets for them as virus and spyware from time to time.
drivers and support for mustek and windows xp are always a really fun thing.

[Play_The_0dds]

oh, forgot to mention, i had the file you posted wwphf.exe listed in my files as a scanner file....thought it was for a kodak, but after your post i it hit me it was for a scanmagic 1200(mustek)

[minicow]

but then the question becomes why is it wwphf.exe and not wwphs.exe? I can find all kind of info if it was wwphs.exe but nothing is found as wwphf.exe and I even got a page saying there was no such thing............

[Play_The_0dds]

with all the hardware and software on the net, it is amazing we find as much as we do. this could be a obsolete file that was only used on one application and dropped for a newer version. it seems to me that i had to go through all the software the woman had for her computer to see what was putting it on, being i wrote it down as a scanner file it must have been something i could not find on the net either. i did a google search for it, didnt find nothing, checked my notebook and found just the one refference"scanner". so it is likely just a odd exe that went to some outdated software.

[minicow]

k, I did a search thru the files for the scanner....this file is not there, so I did a search and found it is part of the system32 which is on the harddrive and unaccessible.

just kind of agravating that on my scans it is never the same ones that finds it to be a trojan, I can run my system antivirus 4 times in a period of a mnth and twice it will say it is a virus or trojan....... so I run some online scans...sometimes they say it is a trojan and sometimes it isn't. which has gotten me really curious as to what this file is and since no info can be found makes it that more perplexing.

[Jazz]

This is just a suggestion and a rather long shot to be honest with you.

However, when you hover over the executable in Windows Explorer, what information does in display in the yellow box that appears? Anything of relevance?

NB

Sorry to step on your toes Play_The_0dds.

[Play_The_0dds]

feel free, thats the nice thing about a discussion forum, dont have to rely on just one person's answers. i went back and checked, using copernic, and any other search i could think of and didnt turn up anything. like i stated in the above post i run across that file one other time, it was causing a error during startup on a xp machine.the mustek scanner in question had a scan utility in the startup tray and if i remember right the file was part of it. after having more time to think about it i remember downloading a updated driver from driverguide.com that fixed it. when i first seen the file was noted it as a scanner file i first thought it was from a computer i fixed recently that had a kodak digital camera........after a while all this stuff runs together in my mind.
nice thing about makers like lexmark and hp and a few others most of thier files have hp or lex in the app name. one thing they could do, is install the scanner on a different computer and see if the file pops up then. i dont know if the uninstaller(if there is one) would remove all the files if you uninstalled it on that computer. of course you could copy the file to my documents and delete the one in sys32 and see which program complains, or if the scanner still works. then reinstall the scanner software to see if it comes back.

[patrickjb]

One thing you could do if you don't want to delete this file is change the extension to a non-executable. (ex. aaa) See if anything stops working. If a know application stops working, change the extension back to exe. At least if it is a virus, it will not be able to execute.