An icon appeared out of nowhere

does anyone know what this is?

http://mikesuz.com/mike/images/desktop.jpg
from WinCustomize Forums
I'm running Vista Ultimate with a (don't laugh) Nvidia 7300 vid card.
I was unable to view any dreamscenes or dreamscape desktops.
A few days ago I installed the Elecard MPEG-2 decoder and streaming pack.
I was then able to view all dreamscene files and most .dream files.
In my quest to view the ones that still didn't work, I installed
ffdshow and was still unable to view certain .dream files.
Then it happened... I noticed an icon that sat in the top right corner
of the .dream or dreamscene desktop that hadn't been there before.
It's not there for any other desktop such as a photo or solid color.
I uninstalled ffdshow and it was still there.
I did an earlier system restore... still there.
I ran adware prgrams and a virus check on the entire system... still there.
I googled the shit out of this phantom icon and found nothing.
Does ANYONE have a clue what the hell it is????
It's a small 1/2" rectangle made up of 9 tiny white boxes.
I have a screen shot of it here my phantom icon

just in case that didn't work.... here's the address,
http://mikesuz.com/mike/images/desktop.jpg

H E L P ! ! ! !
5,458 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
is it movable?

is it clickable?
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

One of my rigs runs Vista Ultimate, and I use/have many dreams ...and I can assure you that no icon or anomalies appear on my desktop at all. Therefore I can tell you that it's not a Stardock product that has done this, so I'd be looking to the other things you installed.

I know that's not a lot of help, but at least it has narrowed things down for you..

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
maybe its that Vid Card?
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Try the deleting from desktop steps to see if it tells you what it is.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Looks like some Virtual Desktop programs' grid to me.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Looks like some Virtual Desktop programs' grid to me.


yep, or some other 3rd party app.. which may somehow be being activated when u run a dream for some reason. I'd check my running processes.
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Looks like some Virtual Desktop programs' grid to me.


yep, or some other 3rd party app.. which may somehow be being activated when u run a dream for some reason. I'd check my running processes.


I have checked my running processes looking for malware and found nothing abnormal.
Perhaps I can look closer. My hunch is that ffdshow is the culprit. You might think uninstalling ffdshow along with a system restore would do the trick... guesss not!
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
it also looks like the user account grid for logon studio
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It has to have a process - try crashing by closing at random the process you do not recognize first and make note so when you crash you can go on to the next set of process's that you did once already till you find which one is the culprit. Once you find it - look for the file and where it comes from. That may give you some insight - bad thing tho is that it may have written to a dll in system file and has been associated to the system. Which being shared assoc. - removing it may cause other problems with dll allocations in memory or such.
Good luck and you may find where it came from or not. But you are sure to find where and what it is. Dealing with it may be not so easy.

SGT  
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I've looked at my processes and I admit that I am not high enough along
the geek ladder to understand them all. I've googled them but that hasn't
really helped me. I've noticed one named desktop window manager that must
be new in Vista, I don't recall it in XP. It's steadily using the CPU but
armed with that information, what would I do next?? Have a look.
Hopefully this image will work below this, if not, it resides at:
http://mikesuz.com/mike/images/processes.jpg

Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hey,TampaMike,are you familiar with a program called 'Hijackthis'?
If you download it,run it and copy the detailed log of running processes it produces to here someone might be able to identify your rogue app.Just a thought.  
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'd leave the dwm.exe alone - it is needed to run the desktop. But DSAgnt.exe and the 2 rundll32.exe has a host process running in it. That could be it - one of those or even maybe that nero home. If you are using the wrong nero or even got a bad install of nero - seems I've seen something along this same line with nero.
Kill those one at a time and see what gives. If it is a rundll host process - you are gona have to find what starts it in the prefetch and or regs.[Not gona be easy being a host process] But you may find what program it is associated to and remove it or have it reconfigured [?]

I'll bet it's nero!

SGT  
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This is total long shot ...I know zip about vista or dreams...

but ive had phantom icons before...

First Rightclick on desktop and see if " lock web items on desktop" is checked ...then uncheck it.

Try display properties > desktop tab > customize desktop > web tab. see if anything is in the web page box ..delete them....click ok.
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
First, allow me to thank everyone who has offered advice.
Keep it coming!!!!
THE PLOT THICKENS....
Today I observed that the icon appears when using any microsoft
supplied file and any .dream file HOWEVER, it's not there if I
play one of my own mpg or wmv files via dreamscene.

Mike
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
None of those processes have obvious spyware, adware, or malware names, but then if they were trying to be effective why would they?

I would look at both of your rundll32.exe files. Right click the process then click open file location. If one of the files does NOT open the C:\Windows\System32 directory then you have malware that needs to be taken care of.
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
You need to view all of the processes that are running to figure this out. Your image only shows 22 of the 61. Click on "show processes for all users" to display them and then repost your image.