BleepingComputer.com: Hijack This Program

Thank you for all that info Papakid.

I really do not want to fix anything anything with Hijack This and do know not to do that, I was just thinking about checking out the program and seeing what info it could tell me about my system. I would not even use it for startup entries or anything else other than system info and familiarizing myself with the program.

For startup entries I have always just used the settings in programs themselves to prevent them from running on startup and for those that I cannot do that with, I use Spybot. I have used Spybot for that for many years and know the difference between what I can and cannot stop from running on startup. I check the startup section of Spybot quite often as sometimes programs put themselves in there long after they were installed and configured to not run on startup. I do not what it is about Quicktime, but it continually tries to put itself in my startup entries, I do not even have to use the silly program for it to do that. It does it so often that I am tempted to just remove it from my system, especially since I am not even sure why I have it, it was just there when I got this system and I have not bothered to remove it.

Anywho, I appreciate all the info you gave me, thank you.

You're quite welcome 'stang. I always enjoy seeing people who like to learn.

There are some other tools included with HijackThis--some powerful that deserve respect of their own, such as deletion of NT Services--some informational, such as a list of Installed programs--and some that can do both, such as the Alternate Data Streams (ADS) scanner that will show and remove ADS. You can learn a lot just by researching how to use such tools--even if you don't use them. It's all about finding and removing software--the main purpose is usually to do that with unwanted software. But HJT makes no distinctions as to whether it is unwanted or not--all it knows is that software is software--it removes what you tell it to.

Stang777, on Mar 9 2009, 05:05 PM, said:

Yep, the old qttasks.exe groundhog day startup. I used to know how to fix that, but if I'm not mistaken, it still even comes back when the program is updated. I gave up on fighting it and went with QuickTime Alternative. All QuickTime is is a media player--some websites you can only few certain videos or listen to thier music if you have QuickTime installed. But all you really need are the codecs, which is what you get with QTA.

As far as how you got it--do you have iTunes or an iPod--anything media related and Apple might have installed QT and keeps it updated. Otherwise you might have installed it when you couldn't play a music or video file.

Thanks for the additional info Papakid.

As to Quicktime, I do not have any of those products you mentioned. It was just on this system when I got it. It was a handmedown from my parents that I got about a year ago and Quicktime was put on the system in 2005 and it was probably never even used. I have been getting my parents handmedown computers for about 14 years and I am pretty sure QuickTime has been on them all although I have no idea why. On this computer I can see that QuickTime was installed at the same time as RealPlayer and Viewpoint. Seems odd that they are all on it since this computer was mostly used for graphic design using CorelDraw but with my dad, who knows. I pretty much gave up trying to figure out why he has done the things he has done on this computer, you should see the way he has stuff installed on here, you would not even believe it, I know I don't.

I think I may have stopped Quicktime from tying to install itself in my startup, A little while ago I had an idea, (yes, I know that is hard to believe, but I did) I just double clicked on the qttasks.exe which made it so that when Zonealarm popped up with its warning about it trying to install itself in my startup, it finally gave me the option to apply the setting to all suspicious behavior by that program and I checked it. In the past, when Quicktime did it on its own, I was not given the option to apply it to all suspicious behavior. Only time will tell if it worked, but it should have

This post has been edited by Stang777: 09 March 2009 - 11:44 PM