Windows 7 Investigating Suspicious Directories and Log Files on Windows 7 Pro Machine

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MikeyChris

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Jan 2, 2012
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I have a Win 7 Pro 64 bit machine that was built around 2011. There is a directory off the root named C:\SYSTEM that contains various Visual Basic & DLL files dated 1998. Are they for my virtual Win XP machine? Or maybe some other backward compatibilty thing? They actual Folder is dated late 2010, so perhaps it was part of the install.
I also have a folder named c:\analytics.that only contains a log. Is this sending data to someone? The lof entries range form 2015 through July 2017, but these entries are not daily, they seem to be once monthly (although some are more frequent) and there are multiple entries on the days that are logged. a sample line:

7/10/2017 8:04:12 AM Severity=INFORMATION Message=http://www.google-analytics.com/col...are&av=2.4.5953.20264&aip=1&t=event&ec=Backup Source&ea=Desktop&el=&rest_method=GET

There is also a c:\perflogs folder that seems to have tracked my OFFICE install in 2013. Can I delete it?

Thnax!
 
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Sounds to me like you have some spyware viruses in there, so you should download MALWAREBYTES and scan with v3.x for sure. And if you haven't rebuilt your computer in 6 years or had yearly maintenance done on it by a professional, it would be best to back up all your personal data (Library folders) to external media, and perform a rebuild on it; or pay a Computer Pro to do for you. Also, if you are running some kind of virtualware (VMware, HyperBox, etc.) to run XP on your machine, it should NOT be putting stuff into C:\System. Unless the person who rebuilt your computer upgraded it from XP to run W7 (very commonly done), and did a side-by-side install of XP & W7; which is not recommended for just this reason. You would...
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C:\Perflogs is normal and it wouldn't really save you much space. C:\SYSTEM and the and analytics are not normal C:\ items. Something you installed or if you ran an installer from C:\ items can get dumped there. Hard to say what they may be for and if it's legit usage, something left over or something malicious. You can upload the files to virustotal.com and check them.
 
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Sounds to me like you have some spyware viruses in there, so you should download MALWAREBYTES and scan with v3.x for sure. And if you haven't rebuilt your computer in 6 years or had yearly maintenance done on it by a professional, it would be best to back up all your personal data (Library folders) to external media, and perform a rebuild on it; or pay a Computer Pro to do for you. Also, if you are running some kind of virtualware (VMware, HyperBox, etc.) to run XP on your machine, it should NOT be putting stuff into C:\System. Unless the person who rebuilt your computer upgraded it from XP to run W7 (very commonly done), and did a side-by-side install of XP & W7; which is not recommended for just this reason. You would then have a mix of very old folders in your C: root going back 16 years (when XP came out), and of course that would make it confusing at to what was there when the computer had XP on it and what it should have now with W7 on it.

Food for thought.
Best of luck to you,
<<BIGBEARJEDI>>
 
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