The Never-Ending Process . . .

[TennesseeJed]

My laptop (Pavilion ze4220) is loading and running a program called "docabr.exe" which is gobbling both my cpu time and memory. When I terminate the process it reappears instantly. This program is usually using about 30-65% of my cpu and 20 megs of ram. As a result, windows xp (pro/xp2) is running very slowly.

I have searched my C: drive for this program and can't find it. I also couldn't find a reference to it in my registry.

Does anyone know what DOCABR.EXE if for and where is comes from? My guess is that is this program is related to a networking issue, but that's just an intuition.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Jed

[TennesseeJed]

It's spelled DOCABR.EXE and may be associated with another program named DOSFAX.EXE.

Jed

[TennesseeJed]

Ran AV, SBS&D, AdAware, uninstalled net-based programs, . . . nothing.

DOCABR.EXE still loads and runs. I'm baffled.

Jed

[Gene K]

Uninstall DOSFAX.EXE to see if that gets the other.
Gene K

[TennesseeJed]

Thanks for your suggestion Gene K. Unfortunatley, neither of these programs are found during a search of the C: drive and I have uninstalled all but essential program from add/remove that I thought could be offending.

I did finally find "docabr" and "dosfax" in the run\runonce registry folders. After deleting the dosfax entry, it went away. Docabr.exe won't; I delete it, but it reappears the next startup.

I've run startup searches with both Symantec AV and Spybot S&D. Even after finding 7 or so spyware registry entries, dosabr.exe always reappears in the registry \run folder.

The command in the registry for docabr.exe is "c:\windows\web\printers docabr.exe rerun" I deleted every file in the printers folder and docabr.exe still loads and runs everytime I log on with adminstrator rights. When a friend logged on w/o administrator rights, docabr.exe did not load. Strange.

When I shut down, I have to end task on app docabr.exe because windows can't kill it. Then I get an error message that a .dll failed to initialize. Then the system shuts down.

I'd hate to re-install the OS. Since I have a second computer, I am continuing to work on it.

Still not completely convinced its malicious script, but could be a bizzarro XP error.

Still baffled and appreciate any suggestions.

BTW could someone tell me the command parameters to search the C: drive in DOS on bootup for docabr.*? I've pretty much forgotten my DOS commands after this many years.

Jed

[Gene K]

In rambling around the web with various search engines, I found quite a few references to a program called "DosFax" and/or "DosFax Lite" and a few statements that it is sometimes bundled with Modem software. Try looking there in your search.

[TennesseeJed]

Thanks again Gene K.

As much fun as I get out of solving computer problems, I'm pretty sure that, after 5-6 hours of trying, this one is over my head.

Since I won't lose any data, a clean install is sure to do the trick. I usually do one or two a year anyway on this system.

It's a pretty crafty program though. I booted up on dos mode and was able to keep docabr.exe from loading, but only if I had restricted use access instead of standard or admin access.

Now I'm pretty convinced it was some spyware ad-on.

**it happens . . .

Jed