What is that little teddy bear icon known asjdbgmgr.exe?

Factual Questions
1

Go ahead and search it, but I received an e-mail from a friend stating that it was a virus of some sort that crashed my computer within 14 days. If this is so…I viewed the date it was modified, and it says 1999. I didn’t get this computer till 2000. Please tell me what this icon is. Thanks!

2

It is a hoax - do not delete:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/jdbgmgr.exe.file.hoax.html

3

thanks! I also have the klez virus…it just pops up and says waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

4

Get thee to www.antivirus.com and run their Housecall antivirus scan.

Then pop over to www.grisoft.com and download their free installable antivirus software .

5

Sooo… what is it there for?

6

It’s used to debug javascripts (the name derives from Javacript DeBuG ManaGeR). Not something the average user needs, so even if you delete it, you aren’t badly harmed.

But it’s a good rule to never delete files because of an e-mail virus warning. Check at a virus site or Snopes or run the virus name through Google. The next phony warning like this might not be benign.

7

You don’t need it unless you are a Java developer using Microsoft J++. Then it is part of the debugging system. So, unless you’re a Java programmer, deleting it won’t harm your computer at all. But obviously it’s a bad idea to heed the warnings of random “ALERT!!!” e-mails without checking them out on Snopes or other virus hoax sites.

8

Better to get a good antivirus software, update it regularly, and let it do its thing automatically. If there is credible information of a new spreading virus out there, run the update manually ahead of schedule.

9

Thank you for this. I used both.

10

I remember a thread in MPSIMS about this a few months back. I found a site talking about how a programmer kept a teddy bear on his desk, to act as an "audience"as he read out the details of the java program he was working on. If it sounded wrong to his ears, he’d go fix it. Might be UL, but it seems to fit the quirk of having a bear icon for something that really is just part of the normal system.

11

I first heard about this in “the practise of programming” by Kerhnigan and Pike. Predating Java by a fair bit.

12

Thanks for that, Shalmanese. I was trying to do some “off the top of the head” recalling. :slight_smile:

13

Thanks for that, Shalmanese. I was trying to do some “off the top of the head” recalling. :slight_smile:

14

Two posts there? Weird.

Anyway, here’s the MPSIMS thread I mentioned. Sorry, I was definitely incorrect about the story being to do with java programming. (I’m getting old, that’s my excuse.)

15

Funny, just earlier today I was browsing with an icon extractor (I was truly bored) and came across this teddy in its associated DLL file!
I backtracked to see WTF it was doing there, then shrugged and forgot about it again.
Until this synchronicity.

But for real head-scratchers and giggles, nothing beats reading open-source code documentation… :slight_smile:

16

lol <b>dman</b> ROFL