Strange startup program called "Program"

Question

I have discovered a weird entry in my startup programs. A program with the name "Program" that has neither publisher nor can I open its location. See the following screenshot:

To me it seems to be some kind of "zombie" entry. When I right click on it the options "Open file location" and "Properties" are both grayed out. Nevertheless I was concerned a little bit that it could be some kind of malicious software, so I disabled the entry when it first occured. Now, after some time, the entry occured again and this time even twice (so now I have it 3 times in the startup list, one time disabled and two times enabled). This puzzles me a bit. I guess if I disable it again it will occur again once more.

Is there a way to find out where this startup entry is really located in the system (registry, startup folders...), permanently remove it, or even find out by which program it was created?

Best regards

Bastian Weber

Answer 1

If a quotation mark is missing then windows did so as to make the address redundant since the file isn't contained in that address anymore (file has probably been deleted or moved) but the reg entries still exist.

Answer 2

Delete the appropriate registration entry (find the file name by the "command line" column description in the Startup tab, then execute a find command with this file name in regedit.exe, then delete all strings matching this entry).

Answer 3

Please download the free version of Malwarebytes.

Update it immediately.

Do a full system scan

Let us know the results at the end.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products

LOL cause on my PC it is malwarebytes that is the rouge program in startup named "PROGRAM" it must be from some sort of error or file without attributes.

One thing I've noticed is this:

"C:\PROGRAM" FILES/MALWAREBYTES/ANTI-MALWARE\mbamtray.exe

the end quote is out of order it is EXACTLY like I typed it above but on every other entry it is after the .exe except this one.

I have no idea how to change that maybe someone does.

Answer 4

You can check the column "Type" in the task manager. It tells you whether the startup entry originates from the registry or from an autostart folder. If it's in the registry open up regedit and check the different locations where autostart options can be defined. One of them would be *HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run*. There are several other ones, just google. Then navigate there, find the problematic entry, and correct it.

As an alternative, you could just disable the entry.