Hello all, long time no see. I installed TOEE again recently so I could snag a graphic for my own purposes, and Vista 64 Home Premium's Windows Defender popped up a warning about this exe just as TOEE ran for the first time: PowerReg Scheduler V3.exe I did some searching on the net and found a page that was apparently some sort of process listing involving malware. This exe and TOEE were listed among a miriad of other exe's. So I'm wondering if something is up with this exe and if the TOEE install placed it on my machine. I allowed Windows Defender to remove it for now. If anything else strange happens, I'll report back. But for now, I just wanted to toss this out there (I searched the forum already and didn't see it mentioned). I'm also running AVG Free, and it did not detect my TOEE as being infected (saw the sticky). I didn't upgrade with any patches yet. Take care!
Well, whatever that executable is, it's not something you get after installing ToEE or the mod packs. You got it from somewhere else, most likely from the Internet, and yeah, it's highly likely that it's contagious (and as such is either a trojan or some other form of virus or spyware). You'd better remove it if you didn't install it yourself (it's often a good idea in general - as long as you didn't install it yourself, you usually don't want it, though there are exceptions of course). As far as ToEE goes, it definitely has nothing to do with ToEE or any of our mod packs (at least not with the official game installation - not sure about any pirated crap floating around, maybe it actually has this PowerReg thing as a "free bonus", in which case it's almost certain that it's a virus). The bottom line is -- even though Windows Defender is not the best spyware detection software around (quite far from it actually), if I were you, I'd try removing that PowerReg Scheduler because it's likely to be something you don't want and definitely not something the game would need. - Agetian
I followed an info link on the exe from within Windows Defender and it took me to a Microsoft page with this info: PowerRegScheduler is a product registration system used by some legitimate software programs. It collects demographic data for vendors who use PowerRegScheduler as a product registration reminder. PowerRegScheduler collects data such as your name, address, e-mail, place of purchase, product serial number, etc. This data is transmitted to PowerRegScheduler servers and is then made available to the manufacturer of the purchased product. It sounds like something "normal", but probably something that someone could easily use for their own devious purposes.
Well yeah, while the definition has the word 'legitimate' in it, you never know what exactly it sends and where it sends it. Also, it's an application that can potentially be exploited by others even if it is used in a legitimate way initially. I think it should be safe to remove it anyway. EDIT: Btw, usually when such a program is installed legitimately, you get to agree with its installation (as in, for instance, you install some program, and you get this popup that says "Please take your time and register our software with PowerReg!" or something like that). If it was installed in a hidden way without you even knowing about it, and in case it runs some sort of a scheduler of your system - that looks quite weird. EDIT: A quick browse through the Internet revealed that ViewSonic uses this program quite often to remind the users to register their monitor every two weeks - that's one of the most common 'legitimate' uses of this program. - Agetian
