Last few times I ran NPE it gave me several reports I never had before, and which puzzle me.
First strange thing: after the restart it asked me (again) if I would want the run the file NPE.exe, instead of the usual NPE progress screen showing it is already doing its thing. After a few reruns that is now gone.
Next it told me that "NPE has succesfully restored internet connection. Host file and NPE proxy settings may have been modified." After a few reruns that is now gone too.
Subsequently, it reported two files as bad: bhdrvx64. sys and idsvia64.sys. It recommended to delete them (which NPE would do for me at the next restart); I accepted, my pc restarted and I got the message from NPE it failed to delete. Nevertheless it was the last of that. New NPE runs told me all was fine and no threats were found.
Today I ran NPE again. And now it told me the same (reporting them as bad and/or suspicious) about the following files: PortRoyale.exe and MasterSplitter.exe These files are legit and official, but I nevertheless deleted/uninstalled them. And again after rerunning NPE, it reported that no threats were found. I am wondering if I am facing a buggy version of NPE of perhaps a damaged Windows?
But most of all I want to know if my Root sector is free of bad stuff. Can I still trust NPE on this when it gives these strange file reports? Also I want to know that when NPE checks the root sector, does it only check the root sector of the hard drive containing Windows or also the root sectors of any other hard drives I have installed? (I have three hard drives.)
Normally I do a new Windows installation once a year (which should take care of any residing bad things, because of the formatting of the primary partition), and that is now overdue for some time. So, my only real worry at the moment is the integrity of my root sector. I know what do to if it is infected, but that takes a lot of extra work. So, it would be nice to know that I could still trust NPE on that, set aside its inconsistent file reports.
To be clear: over the last few years I ran NPE, I never before had this behaviour.
System: Windows 7 Ultimate with Norton Antivirus 21.3.0.12 and NPE 4.3.0.13