This is a difficult to solve problem I faced when trying to fix my home desktop. As mentioned in the title, the computer reboots, provided no username is clicked to login. If a username is clicked before the time period, the system will run Explorer and it would work fine.

It took a lot of work to find out the cause, using “msconfig”, disabling all services and enabling one by one to find the culprit.

It was due to a program in the Services named as Automated Surfer (C:\Windows\system32\srvany.exe). On doing a scan from Jotti’s Malware Scanner site some antivirus programs showed that it was a trojan. The results are posted below.

So deleted it from the services using regedit.exe and deleted the srvany.exe file. Now the system is fine. A file with the same name does appear in some other computers (I think it is part of some Resource Kit) so be sure to check the MD5 before deleting it.

Please write a comment if you face the same problem.

File: srvany.exe
Status: INFECTED/MALWARE
MD5: c9b18abe9063a33e77f6be81cc8df0c5
Packers detected: -
Bit9 reports: No threat detected

Scanner results

A-Squared Found Riskware.NetTool.Win32.Calc-SETI@Home.b
Dr.Web Found Program.SrvAny

Operating System: Windows xp SP2