Why is my explorer.exe growing uncontrollably?

Factual Questions
1

I never thought I’d post a computer question in this forum, but I’m stumped.
We’ve had this computer for about a year, and in that time have had problems with spyware which seem to have disappeared after liberal and repetitive use of several spyware removal programs.

I have a problem now which seems to have cropped up since the spyware issue, but I don’t know if it’s related.

Explorer.exe grows into a memory hogging monster after only a few hours whether the computer is used or not. It gets to the point where we get an “out of virtual memory” message and explorer.exe is using up 400MB of memory even though the coputer has been sitting idle.

I’ve just reinstalled Windows from the CD ROM because I thought we might have corrupted some Windows XP files trying to get rid of the spyware, but explorer.exe still has the same problem even after the reinstall. This was a reinstall recovery, which means all my settings are the same and I didn’t have to reinstall any of my other software.

What could be causing this problem? Could it be a virus? I’ve got McAfee virus scan but it’s detected nothing.

2

Running under Windows XP?

3

Yes, sorry if I didn’t make this clear. It’s XP Professional.

4

…and the computer boots up more slowly than it did when it was new, especially right after you log in as a user.

5

One thing that might be revealing is to download FileMon from www.sysinternals.com. Run it, filter on explorer.exe, and see which files it’s accessing (if any).

6

One of your programs might have a memory leak - I don’t know much on the subject, but Google knows tons.

7

I have been asking this to everyone who posts these types of problems, even if it is a longshot. When this happens (out of virtual memory) go to the task manager and see if you are running a process called libupdate.exe or winlibupdate.exe. If so, it’s a nasty, nasty virus called bionet (not detected be most antivirus and firewalls) and you’re most likely going to have to format. But before you freak out, just see if it’s running.

Also, be advised, it (the virus) may not start up with the computer. Wait til you get the “out of VM” error and then check the task manager.

8

Ok, it’s not in the task manager now, but I’m not always around when the “out of VM” error happens, and frequently it’s too late by the time I get back to the computer: it’s so out of memory it’s virtually frozen.

9

I’m going to take a WAG and say it’s a runaway plug-in.

You can check what plug-ins you have by doing this to IE:

  1. tools -> Internet options

  2. temporary internet files -> settings

  3. view objects

There you will find a list of your plug-ins. Left click and do “properties” on each one. Do any of them look suspicious?

(Note: This doesn’t give an exhaustive list of your plug-ins. I know my list doesn’t show Adobe (PDF). I’m not sure how to get a list of ALL of the plug-ins. Dopers?)