Trying to repair infected rpcss.dll in Vista causes black screen on bootup

D

delerious

Member
I ran the malware scanner Hitman Pro on my Vista computer, and it detected that C:\Windows\system32\rpcss.dll was infected. I uploaded the file to virustotal.com and it said the file is probably infected.

So I ran the command sfc /scanfile=c:\Windows\system32\rpcss.dll, and Windows said the file was corrupted and that it repaired the file and that I needed to restart. After Vista booted up, all it showed was a black screen with the mouse pointer. It never made it to the login screen. I could move the mouse pointer around, but nothing else worked. CTRL+ALT+DEL didn't do anything, and I had to do a hard power down and power on to restart the computer.

The same black screen with mouse pointer happened when I tried to boot Vista into Safe Mode. Then I tried booting from the Dell Windows Vista DVD, and I tried the "Startup Repair" option, but it said it couldn't find any problems. Running chkdsk didn't find any problems either. So I used the System Restore option to go back to a restore point from yesterday, and the system was finally able to boot up to the login screen. But the rpcss.dll file is still infected according to virustotal.com.

Any idea how to fix the rpcss.dll file and not run into the black screen problem?
 

My Computer

System One

Boo the Vista DVD and go to a Command Prompt.

rpcss.dll is in several locations on my Vista Ultimate system so it should also be on yours. Copy from one of them over the one in C:\Windows\system32\.


Vistarpcss.dll..jpg
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro X64
    Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo IdeaCenter K450
    CPU
    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3401 Mhz, 4 Core(s)
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750, Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung 27" C27F398 Curved Monitor
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080 (HDMI)
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB Seagate ST2000NM001 2TB Seagate ST31500341AS 1.5TB
    PSU
    500W
    Mouse
    Lenovo USB
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Internet Speed
    50MB Down, 10MB Up
  • Operating System
    Windows 7 Pro X64
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP xw4400 Workstation
    CPU
    Intel Pentium D Dual 3.4Ghz
    Motherboard
    HP 0A68h
    Memory
    5GB
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer KN242HYL 24" (KVMS)
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1080
    Hard Drives
    Seagate ST3120026As 120GB SATA (boot) Toshiba DT01ACA200 2TB SATA
    Mouse
    Logitech via KVMS switch
    Keyboard
    Dell USB via KVMS switch
    Internet Speed
    50 Down, 10 Up
    Other Info
    Apache Web Server since 2001
I booted from the DVD and went to the command prompt and then copied D:\windows\system32\rpcss.dll to C:\windows\system32. The D drive is the recovery partition. After that Windows booted up fine and I checked the rpcss.dll on virustotal.com and it said it was clean. But then out of curiosity, I ran "sfc /scanfile=c:\windows\system32\rpcss.dll" again, and surprisingly it told me the file was corrupt and it told me to restart. I restarted and got the black screen once again. I had to go back to an infected restore point, then re-copy the rpcss.dll from the recovery drive, and finally got the system working again. I'm not going to run sfc /scanfile on rpcss.dll again, but I wonder why Windows would think the original uninfected version of it is corrupt?
 

My Computer

System One

I don't know why sfc is doing that, but like you, I wouldn't run it again if all it does is trash the system.
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro X64
    Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo IdeaCenter K450
    CPU
    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3401 Mhz, 4 Core(s)
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750, Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung 27" C27F398 Curved Monitor
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080 (HDMI)
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB Seagate ST2000NM001 2TB Seagate ST31500341AS 1.5TB
    PSU
    500W
    Mouse
    Lenovo USB
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Internet Speed
    50MB Down, 10MB Up
  • Operating System
    Windows 7 Pro X64
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP xw4400 Workstation
    CPU
    Intel Pentium D Dual 3.4Ghz
    Motherboard
    HP 0A68h
    Memory
    5GB
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer KN242HYL 24" (KVMS)
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1080
    Hard Drives
    Seagate ST3120026As 120GB SATA (boot) Toshiba DT01ACA200 2TB SATA
    Mouse
    Logitech via KVMS switch
    Keyboard
    Dell USB via KVMS switch
    Internet Speed
    50 Down, 10 Up
    Other Info
    Apache Web Server since 2001
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