Malware or Not Malware??? That is the Question.

Malware is usually described as software that disrupts a system, sometimes, on purpose.

I had a program once on my system that was almost impossible to get rid of. I done a search online and there are a number of technical forums that considers these products malware.

The program was called File Shredder from http://www.handybits.com. File shredders are programs designed so that it is impossible to recover or undelete any deleted files, for the extra parania in all of us.

Anyway, I uninstalled the program and months after I was getting a message from Winpatrol that Teknum Systems was trying to add a update.exe entry to my starup folder.

I have a program on my system called WinPatrol at http://www.winpatrol.com that warns me about programs trying to change my system, like stopping spyware before it gets on my system.

Anyway, Teknum Systems is Handybits- check out their copyright notice on their website.

WinPatrol also gave me the path of the 'updater', C:\Program Files\Teknum Systems\update.exe. Sure enough, the folder was there, so I deleted it.

Still, I kept getting the same message. So I went to the registration database - click on Start > Run > and type in regedit - and be careful here. One wrong move and you could screw up your system.

So I went searching for terms like Teknum and Handybits - found a few entrys and deleted the. But still the message remained. I was beginning to think that my Winpatrol was either corrupted or stuck in a loop. Winpatrol at least gave me the option to deny access to this program, which I did. It seemed like the only other thing I could do.

Then one day I started using a new program called Context Menu Editor from www.bartdart.com, totally unrelated to my situation and had nothing to do with spyware, adware, or malware.

When you right-click on a file you get a menu with a series of options. This program allows you to edit those menus. And to my surprise, one of the first entrys I noticed had the company name Teknum Systems attached to it. The file responsible was called ssmenu.dll.

I ran an internet search on that particular file and sure enough, others have had similar problems. Even referring to it as malware, so I deleted it. I ran one more check of my registration database and again deleted 3 more entries I found from that particular program.Ssmenu.dll apparently added the entries before I deleted it.

Problem solved. I DON'T LIKE programs that try to update themselves automatically, especially, when they try to do it behind your back and you are not aware of it.

Malware or Not, or just a sloppy program, at least when it comes to uninstalling. I found this program to be a real pain. I don't recommend them to anyone.