au_.exe how do I remove this?

I downloaded a program today that I have used before with no problems and now I find that every time I open a program etc, I'm getting au_.exe error messages.

It states - (program name) Bad Image and the message body says

c:\PROGRAM~Z\SEARCH~\1\SEARCH~1\bin\SPVC32~1.DLL is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again using the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support. Error status is 0xc000012f

I have run Malwarebytes, Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool but it is still happening. I understand from reading articles on the web that this is a form of malware but neither of the above seemed to pick it up. It's getting to be a real pain and I'm worried about what it could be doing to my computer.

Can anyone help me with removing this? I am fairly computer savvy but no expert by any means.

What happens if you try to delete the DLL directly? If it won't delete first I would open an admin command prompt and go to the directory where the DLL is. run regsvr32 /u SPVC32~1.DLL

If it says successfully unregistered fine.. then try to delete again.
If it still won't delete or it got an error with regsvr32 then try Unlocker.
If that doesn't do it then you'll probably need to forcefully uninstall it with Revo or another uninstall tool.

Also you may have to reset default file associations. Search Tutorial Section for how to reset default file type associations.

MilesAhead said:

What happens if you try to delete the DLL directly? If it won't delete first I would open an admin command prompt and go to the directory where the DLL is. run regsvr32 /u SPVC32~1.DLL

If it says successfully unregistered fine.. then try to delete again.
If it still won't delete or it got an error with regsvr32 then try Unlocker.
If that doesn't do it then you'll probably need to forcefully uninstall it with Revo or another uninstall tool.

Also you may have to reset default file associations. Search Tutorial Section for how to reset default file type associations.

Click to expand...

Thank you for this reply but to be honest, I'm not too sure how to do any of this. Can you talk me through it in words of one syllable?

Press Winkey x then the letter a, to get an administrative command prompt

in the prompt type
cd \PROGRAM~Z\SEARCH~\1\SEARCH~1 (and press Enter key)
type
regsvr32 /u SPVC32~1.DLL (and press Enter key)

tell me what happened.

MilesAhead said:

Press Winkey x then the letter a, to get an administrative command prompt

in the prompt type
cd \PROGRAM~Z\SEARCH~\1\SEARCH~1 (and press Enter key)
type
regsvr32 /u SPVC32~1.DLL (and press Enter key)

tell me what happened.

Click to expand...

Thank you so much. I really appreciate your quick response and the help.

After I posted this morning, I looked in my program files and found a program called Search Protect (which was the malware I got with the other program and that I thought I had uninstalled.) I deleted it completely from the hard drive and then deleted it from Recycle Bin as well and it seems to have done the trick.

If I have any more problems with it, I'll definitely go down the route you suggested. Many thanks for all the help.

Glad you got rid of the problem. Thanks for posting the resolution.