Windows XP Shut Down

[ntractv]

Okay, I have a problem that maybe someone here can assist me with.

All of a sudden my desktop system will shut down on while I'm on the Internet and I get the following error message:

The system is shutting down. Please save all work in progress and log off. Any unsaved changes will be lost. This shutdown was initiated by
NT/AUTHORITY/SYSTEM.

Time before shutdown:

Windows must now restart because the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service terminated unexpectedly

Any advice on what the problem is?.

Thanks

[Jason Dunn]

Are you up to date on all your patches? Are you behind a firewall? It looks like someone might be exploiting an RPC hole...

[sgyee]

Your machine has been infected by a variant of MS Blaster.

To fix: Get to your task manager and search for "blaster.exe" or "msblast.exe". Kill the process. This will prevent your machine from shutting down again.

Now that the Blaster executable is offline, download the patches from Microsoft and a cleaner from Symantec or another virus scanning company.

[ntractv]

Thanks a bunch

[Janak Parekh]

Lots more info here: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.blaster.worm.html - they also offer a free removal tool.

After you're cleaned up, set up automatic patch downloads from Windows Update and consider setting up the XP Internet Connection Firewall to protect yourself better in the future...

--janak

[Oliver Mitchell]

to temporarily stop the shutdown click start, then run and type "shutdown -a" (sans quotes) that'll give you time to fix it