Machine freezes

[Carl Stockwell]

Hi all;

A friend has a machine at home running XP-Home and it comes to a screaming
halt once they attempt to use the internet. They are dialing into AOL and
half the time the machine freezes. I used CAD to bring up task manager and
observed that MSHTA.exe is using (in multiple instances) 98 to 100 percent
od CPU usage. Offline, the same shows 100% as idle. Don't know what
MSHTA.exe is and if it might be infected. There is literally nothing on the
machine they need so I'm thinking it might be easier to reformat and
reinstall the OS. Any help or suggestions are appreciated.

thanks

CarlS

[The Unknown P]

Process File: mshta or mshta.exe
Process Name: Microsoft HTML Application Host
Description: Application that is used to run HTA files in Windows. The application is loaded as soon as an .HTA application needs to run and then terminates when the application completes.
Company: Microsoft Corp.
System Process: No
Security Risk ( Virus/Trojan/Worm/Adware/Spyware ): No
You could always change your HTML handler and see if that helps.
--
There are three types of people in computing, those that can count and those that can't.

[The Unknown P]

Process File: mshta or mshta.exe
Process Name: Microsoft HTML Application Host
Description: Application that is used to run HTA files in Windows. The application is loaded as soon as an .HTA application needs to run and then terminates when the application completes.
Company: Microsoft Corp.
System Process: No
Security Risk ( Virus/Trojan/Worm/Adware/Spyware ): No
You could always change your HTML handler and see if that helps.
--
There are three types of people in computing, those that can count and those that can't.

[The Unknown P]

Process File: mshta or mshta.exe
Process Name: Microsoft HTML Application Host
Description: Application that is used to run HTA files in Windows. The application is loaded as soon as an .HTA application needs to run and then terminates when the application completes.
Company: Microsoft Corp.
System Process: No
Security Risk ( Virus/Trojan/Worm/Adware/Spyware ): No
You could always change your HTML handler and see if that helps.
--
There are three types of people in computing, those that can count and those that can't.

[The Unknown P]

Process File: mshta or mshta.exe
Process Name: Microsoft HTML Application Host
Description: Application that is used to run HTA files in Windows. The application is loaded as soon as an .HTA application needs to run and then terminates when the application completes.
Company: Microsoft Corp.
System Process: No
Security Risk ( Virus/Trojan/Worm/Adware/Spyware ): No
You could always change your HTML handler and see if that helps.
--
There are three types of people in computing, those that can count and those that can't.

[The Unknown P]

Process File: mshta or mshta.exe
Process Name: Microsoft HTML Application Host
Description: Application that is used to run HTA files in Windows. The application is loaded as soon as an .HTA application needs to run and then terminates when the application completes.
Company: Microsoft Corp.
System Process: No
Security Risk ( Virus/Trojan/Worm/Adware/Spyware ): No
You could always change your HTML handler and see if that helps.
--
There are three types of people in computing, those that can count and those that can't.