Sudden crashes with wpc.dll, in Games and Browsers, overnight.

[Velvet Wafer]

Yesterday, i went to bed, and left the Machine crunching, after gaming and DLing for hours, as usual.
Today, i tried to start up Mafia 2:
it crashed during Startup, after showing the first loading screen, before you actually get to the menu.
Tried Kane & Lynch 2, crashed 1 sec after clicking the exe, without doing anything

I then went to both Firefox and IE, and tried to DL an older forceware, because i thought the problems may be graphics related.

Upon trying to DL, both Browsers continously crash, exactly in the moment it should start to load the files.

i looked closely at the error reports, and they had one similarity:
For all crashes, the error module name was WPC.DLL
i know its supposed to be an important windows file, but i cant seem to find much info or help topics about it.
so my questions:
- Whats that WPC, and what does it?
- How can i fix my WPC, so i dont have to reinstall everything?

thanks for every answer and thought!

 

[francis511]

Malware ???

 

[Solaris17]

type sfc /scannow in an admin CMD with the disk in.

you can also put the disk in and type sfc /scanonce so it fixes it during boot.

 

[Velvet Wafer]

Malware ???

i also thought that, and in fact there were some minor malware, which i dont believe, was the reason. i will remove it tho, now

type sfc /scannow in an admin CMD with the disk in.

you can also put the disk in and type sfc /scanonce so it fixes it during boot.

i did the first, and it scanned and found one damaged file, which was not wpc.dll

the /scanonce command doesnt even worked, the CMD doesnt even seemed to know the command, and showed me a list of possible commands regarding sfc. Also, nothing appeared at bootup.
should i try to exchange the file with an ubuntu live cd?

 

[Solaris17]

i also thought that, and in fact there were some minor malware, which i dont believe, was the reason. i will remove it tho, now



i did the first, and it scanned and found one damaged file, which was not wpc.dll

the /scanonce command doesnt even worked, the CMD doesnt even seemed to know the command, and showed me a list of possible commands regarding sfc. Also, nothing appeared at bootup.
should i try to exchange the file with an ubuntu live cd?

ya that seems like a good course of action. id do a malware and virus scan as well.

 

[Velvet Wafer]

ya that seems like a good course of action. id do a malware and virus scan as well.

alright, i do, and report back.. until now, there are several finds.. lets see if these were the cause... but if a direct replacement doesnt work, i think i will die a slow and painful death!

 

[Velvet Wafer]

Yeah... well... i removed all adware and viruses, which didnt changed anything... i then had to write protect the dll, in order for ubuntu to not delete it.
(it did,in fact,delete it, when i added the usb stick containing the dll, during ubuntu running)
After replacing the dll, everything works again, luckily!
What still baffles me, how a DLL can be damaged in a running OS, especially such a precious DLL... and that on Win 7!
I was used to such stuff in XP times, but now, it seemed unimaginible
thanks anyways for all your help!

 

[francis511]

Gr8 !

 

[Solaris17]

thanks for keeping us posted!! i hate when people dont follow up!. As for how it got infected. Alot of virus's malware etc target system files because they are executed without question by the OS. never seen UAC or windows defender get mad when the os needed one of those right?

 

[Velvet Wafer]

thanks for keeping us posted!! i hate when people dont follow up!. As for how it got infected. Alot of virus's malware etc target system files because they are executed without question by the OS. never seen UAC or windows defender get mad when the os needed one of those right?

Yeah, i also would have probably thought that! Strange was just, that all Viruses that were found, seemed to be contained in the Java folder, it were JAVA Class.loader, and some JAVA Agent viruses. I dont know, how they accessed the WPC.dll from there, with leaving the Java fully intact (tested it, and it worked)

it also could be, that it was some minor memory instability, which translated into a fucked up system file... in bios i found, that i had forgot to set one timing to the second channel, so they had in fact different TRRDs... one had 4 and one had 5. i set both to 5,updated my antivir, and hopefully this error does not return!