i am running win Xp on my system. Got a nice little problem that is annoying as hell. When ever I try to log of a stop message appears that states:

WINNET>exe - DLL Initialization Failed

The application failed to initialize because the window station is shuttig down.

Then it wont log off. Its OK shutting down or switching user, but it just wont log off.

Any ideas

Winnet.exe is a little downloader application (called something like ‘Downloader-BT’) that you’ve picked up (by accident or by design), but, whether you want it or not, you can kill it temporarily by ending it’s process tree from your task manager. If you want to get rid of it altogether, go into ‘Add Remove Programs’ in ‘Control Panel’ and uninstall it.

I do not find the winnet.exe in my add/remove program. I find it to be there in the task manager operating. I am unable to kill the process. Your guidance on helping me get rid of it is always appreciated.

Thanks

I also have winnet.exe on my computer, I've tried ending the process also but it reopens immediately. I am currently without a good virus scan on my computer, but I'm going to fix that tomorrow. The only other thing I can think of is try running "regedit" from the "Start" menu. So far I haven't found it in the registry, but let me know if you have better luck. Also, if anyone else knows of a better way, I too would welcome some advice. Thanks in advance.

are you sure its winnet not wininet because when i searched for it on google it said i spelled it wrong. Wininet can contane a virus called W32.HLLW.Bymer. I try this site it may help you with your problem

http://www.members.shaw.ca/pccruiser/articles/wininet.htm

I don't know if it's right, but it worked.....

I couldn't end process, uninstall, delete, and addware didn't do a damn thing to those bastard common files comwiz.exe and winnet.exe. I took drastic measures...
I found the files... deleted the extentions, -- saved some empty wordpad files as the comwiz.exe and winnet.exe files -- then end processes the files in the manager-- then they finally ended when they called on the empty .exe files. I rebooted, then deleted the files since they couldn't run processes anymore from the empty .exe files.. now there gone.... ohh and I did to the .dll file that accompanies them.... worked for me when nothing else did.

Thanks friends, I was successful in removing winnet.exe and comwiz.net from the process by removing the registry. I had the probelem through the CommonName which was not removable throuh "Add/Remove Program" or uninstall. the site which helped me is http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/CommonName.html and had to install spybot which cleaned all these stuffs.

Wish the group a many thanks.

Anand

I followed the winnet uninstall or deletion on doxdesk.com but it tells me to go to the registration and get rid of zenet by looking in the 'HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 Key, but I cant find it, and when I look for files or folders I find nothing called zenet, but I can find winnet.

Does this mean I just have to get rid of winnet? Because it tells me to just end the proccess of winnet from the windows task menu but I still see files of winnet when I look. Can anyone help me out?

Winnet.exe- Background task installed by the CommonName Internet Explorer Add-on toolbar. This toolbar enables you to enter keywords or short phrases which will take you straight to the website of the organisation that might have bought those keywords, or phrases (or a close match) from CommonName. So, for example, if CNN had bought the phrase "World News" and you typed "world news" in the CommonName toolbar, it would take you straight to the CNN website. CommonName often comes bundled with file sharing programs such as iMesh and older versions of Kazaa.

Recommendation :
In our opinion this is a useless system for the simple reason that, in the grand scheme of things, only a few companies have subscribed to the service. If the vast majority of the world’s websites operate outside of CommonName, what is the point of using the CommonName toolbar !!? To make matters worse, however, WINNET often misbehaves by hogging up to 90% of CPU time resulting in the PC slowing down to a crawl. We recommend de-installing anything to do with CommonName through the "Add/Remove Program" icon in the Control Panel. Then use ad-ware to finish it off.

Try rereading the instructions at doxdesk...only use the instructions that apply to you...if you dont have a particular file, move on to the next one...but make sure you end process on winnet and comnet first...it took me a few times of trying before they would stay closed.

And about the 00000000.000blah blah blah folder, read it carefully, I'm pretty sure you delete the whole folder, not just files within it. doxdesk does work though, I'm proof.

My only problem now is that I ran Spybot Search and Destroy and deleted all my parasites, so now my iMesh is corrupted...the irony.

Well guys I removed winnet & comwiz by just going to add & remove in the control panel, then went to common names and click to remove it, but I had to be on the internet to do it, it took me to a site to uninstall common names, I went down there was a box that say enter this number in the box, when I did that then gave my comment why I wanted to remove it, the click remove it did after I restarted the computer, good luck to all who try it, I was lucky.

glad we could help

i also had this problem with winnet.exe, the most easy way to get rid of this program and his friends in the registry is to download a program called adaware, you can find it at http://www.adaware.com, it is free and very easy to use,

max

The best way to remove winnet.exe is to do a search...I found mine in the following directory c:\Program Files\Commonname\addressbar.

1. Start your pc in safemode.
2. Go into directory where winnet.exe is.
3. Delete winnet.exe and other files in the same directory where you found winnet.exe.
4. You can also delete the appropriate reg entry in the following path. (Be careful when editing the registry).
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
4. Reboot and you are ok.

seems the thread about deleting the extensions has worked for me, i have adaware and regcleaner but none of these did it for me. reg cleaner removed the entries but they came straight back,unsurprising really as the appswere already running and probably monitoring the registry.

well done matey. you seem to have got the measure of this little app

Thanks John Williams,
I re-named the winnet.exe and comwiz.exe as winnet.old and comwiz.old, then created two new text files and renamed them as winnet.exe and comwiz.exe, used Ctl+Alt+Del to stop the two processes named winnet.exe and comwiz.exe, used msconfig to take them out of startup, then I rebooted my PC and was then able to to delete the CommonName folder in the Program Files folder and that seems to have sorted it!
Thanks again.

I removed the offending application by using "Your Uninstaller! 2003". Of course, to complete the uninstallation using this procedure, you have to be connected to the Internet and then taken to the website of the culprits. At their website, they have the nerve to have a "Comments" box asking for your opinion about their product. Boy, did I lay into those clowns! In any event, here are the main files associated with CommonName: cnbabe.dll, createbookmark.htm, createnote.htm, dfs.dat, emaillink.htm, navigate.htm, and winnet.exe.

At their website, they claim to be doing the public a marvelous "service" by installing this app onto your computer. However, I pointed out to them that by placing this application onto anyone's computer, for any reason, without first getting permission, amounts to nothing more than deception and stealth. It's like breaking and entering someone's home and installing a new telephone. Sure, I might need another phone, but the question is, did I ask you for one? If not, you don't have the right to break into my home (computer).

On Windows 98 I found that this winnet.exe could not be killed, nor could the startup entry be deleted from the registry. Each time you remove the startup entry it gets re-written; each time I killed winnet it would be restarted. (What a pernicious little piece of crap!). If I tried to delete the winnet.exe file I got an access denied error.

What I ended up doing was I wrote a very simple .bat script with the delete commands in it and registered this script in the Run Once registry location: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce]

I then restarted - the run once entry caused the .bat scrpt to execute, thus deleting winnet.exe before it could be started up from the entry in [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]. At this point I was able to remove the winnet.exe startup registry entry as well.

(Maybe I ought to upgrade from Win98 someday - I think I'll upgrade to Linux ...)

/Steve O.

http://www.commonname.com/eng/oneclick/uninstall.asp?DSN=CN&am...N;CN;CN;CN

here is an uninstaller i found for comwiz...hope it helps

Not only only did that not help, it reinstalled the parts that I was able to remove.

Nice a trojan installer disguised as an unistaller.

The only way I was able to finally kill this crap was by searching through my registry for anything that I could (cnbabe.dll, winnet.exe, comwiz.exe, bridge.dll seemed to be enough) and deleting it.

Adaware and SpyBot S&D would report that they removed this but I don't think that they ever found the bridge.dll parts.

I my opinion, the folks resposible for creating such trash should be banned from the net forever.