This showed up on my desktop yesterday.



It actually started as a small block in the upper left corner of my screen but I clicked on it and it drags around and changes color when I click on it. I can't delete it or put it into the recyle bin. Double clicking it does nothing. It appears to only be on the desktop because it doesn't show up when I open anything up. I've run AVAST and it doesn't pick anything up. Anybody have a clue?

Axle

What happens if you RIGHT click on it?
Could it be a tool bar or something that got shrunk down and/or accidentally dragged to your desktop?

Nothing happens when I right click on it either. I can't do anything with it other than move it around the screen.

Axle

You brought up a good point. I ran my msconfig and quicktime and ctfmon (whatever the fuck that is) were both active on startup. I unchecked them and it disappeared so I guess it was one of those. The only things I have on startup are my antivirus and intellipoint.

Axle

I'm not going to give you some 'run this spyware cleaner, run that virus cleaner' solution. These tools below are the ones that truly help you find what's wrong so you can move forward w/ ammunition.

Download Process Explorer and Autoruns from Microsoft Sysinternals

1st, open Process Explorer and look at the processes, particularly paying attention to the Company Name field. If any are non-Microsoft and you don't know what they are, right click on the process and do an online search to see what it is.

Next, run Autoruns. Once it opens completely go to Options and checkbox the Hide Microsoft Entries. Then refresh it again and see if there are any startups that look suspicious. Let us know how that works.

ctfmon is a Microsoft process. It doesn't matter how many times you uncheck it, it will put itself back on. I googled it once and read the instructions on how to remove it from the system. But that didn't work. It still showed up. If I'm not mistaken, it's part of Office.

Yup, ctfmon is a component in Office that initiates the text input processor/ MS language tool bar. It's used for speech/handwriting recognition, keyboard translation, and other alternative user input technologies.

As stated by Mobycat, you can not kill it via msconfig.