Desktop shortcut can't find and run MB 306

[tomseeley]

Earlier this month, I had trouble installing MB 306 but I worked through it by using MB's special files to uninstall/reinstall three separate times.  After the third time, it all seemed ok, and I let the issue drop.  But just now, I tried clicking on the desktop shortcut the install routine created, so I could view the dashboard and see how MB 306 is working, and the shortcut does nothing at all.  I first suspected it's just not pointing to the right *.exe file it needs to activate, to run MB 306, so I opened Windows 10 file explorer and had no luck at all finding any program from Malwarebytes that looked like an executable file.  So I'm stuck.

Trouble is, I need to know something about how MB 306 works with respect to the latest ransomware attacks, and I'm going out of town tomorrow for 3 weeks, so I need to know NOW if my computer which my wife also uses is protected while I'm away.

Can anyone please tell me very soon, please, what I need to do to be able to run MB 306, which I have run successfully just earlier in this month.  So I know it works; I just don't know how to MAKE it work.

[Telos]

Nothing guarantees protection. Not even MBAM.

Instruct your wife not to open unexpected email attachments or web downloads. Nearly all malware infections are user initiated.

That said, you should be able to enter malwarebytes in your Win10 search box. If it's there, you'll see it in the search results. If it's not there, I'd go to Control Panel and look to see if MBAM is present in the list of installed programs.

[dcollins]

If you still can't find the installer, please provide the logs from the thread below as they'll give us an idea if it's installed or not

 

[tomseeley]

First of all, thank you both for the prompt help.  Since I will be out of town starting tomorrow, I do appreciate having something to work on tonight.

Next, thanks for reminding me and my wife never to open unknown files, attachments to emails, etc.  I knew that, of course, and so does she, but it's very helpful especially now in view of the ransomware issue to be reminded of it.  I know nothing is certain, but I also appreciate your help reminding us what WE need to do to stay as safe as we can.

That having been said, here's what I've found so far.  In my list of installed programs, I do find mbam.exe.  It's on my hard drive under C:program files/malwarebytes/anti-malware (don't hold me to the exact syntax or punctuation here; you know what I'm trying to say here; it's where it's supposed to be).  The problem is, when I click on it, nothing happens.  If I right click on it and then click on "run as administrator" (which I shouldn't have to do; I AM the administrator) the usual Windows window pops up, asking if I want to let this app do its thing.  I click yes.  From that point on, nothing, nada, zilch, zero, nothing happens. 

It's hard for me to believe it's really installed.  But I distinctly recall that once I did the uninstall/reinstall routine the third and final time, two weeks ago, it did run correctly, once.  At that point, I was burned out about it all, and I didn't keep checking stuff like could I start it manually using the desktop shortcut.  So it was only today that I first realized that apparently it isn't installed and running correctly after all.  I.e., I'm not being protected by it like I paid for it to do!

If either you or anyone else wants to keep trying to help, I'll appreciate it, but I'm about to leave for 3 weeks in Europe and to be honest I'm not going to touch this subject till I get back.  So I won't be looking at messages or answering any of them for 3 weeks.

One more time: thank you both for your help. At the least, it has helped me be certain that there IS a problem somewhere.  I just need to track it down and kill it!

[dcollins]

Sounds good, enjoy your trip!

If you do want to try and get this working before you leave, the first step would be to run mb-clean from the thread below. This will forcefully remove all remaining remnants of MB3 and install the latest version which has quite a few fixes. If that doesn't work, we'll need that information I requested above. Again, enjoy your trip and hopefully we hear back from you when you return.