The file in question is actually mpengine.dll not any .EXE. My vers. is only at 1.1.12805.0 on Win 10 Anniversary Edition but Win Defender is disabled.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Thu 11-May-17 03:05:26)

It's the version number of the engine, not the executable, that you need. It is listed on the "About" menu in the application.

I'm having a mental blackout . I have always found it difficult since upgrading from 8.1 to 10 to find the actual update version of it that I'm on, and right now failing miserably. I suspect from when I clicked for a new tab in IE11 that I got the Creators update last night, as instead of getting my usual "new tab" screen that I have set to the one that holds an array of frequently used I got a Microsft Advertising one with loads of junk and a warning that continuing without changing settings would authorise an avalanche of MS ads from thereon in.

So I followed the link and turned them off, then went to settings and reset that, then restarted as instructed.

History:
Last night the machine had been running dreadfully slow for hours for no apparent reason. When I went to turn it off it offered the common Update and restart or Update and turn off, which I took. It went to the "Preparing to update" screen as usual.

About 5 minutes later I came back and it had shut down. I was surprised as I though it may be this upgrade which I would expect to take longer.

Started it up this morning and as I normally do waited till I could log on, then left it to complete the start-up procedures which don't start till then. Probably 20 minutes later all seemed normal till I clicked this New Tab.

I suspect the slow running and constant fan running was a background installation of Creators.

So I want to see if I'm on 1607 as before or 1703.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 11-May-17 11:59:03)

Run 'winver' from a command prompt to see which version you are on.

Thanks Ian . 1607 and much easier than what I have always done. D'oh!

In which case you may have concerns about the behaviour that your computer exhibited. Time for a thorough malware scan?

You could be right, except it isn't doing it now, and did stop last night. It does it fairly often for reasons I have always easily traced, which is why I wasn't too worried last night. Though it was rather persistent.

So yes. Time to have some lunch. I shall start a full system Kaspersky scan after posting this, and following that run Malwarebytes as well.

Thanks.

No problems from Kaspersky. Sixty-nine from Malwarebytes all registry, folder or file stuff to do with PUP.Optional.Amazon1Button.AppFlsh, commented as possibly not required or some such. Not labelled as threats.

So I let it quarantine them. If Amazon needs them no doubt it will reinstate them without my knowledge or complain and I can take it from there.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 11-May-17 17:55:28)

No need to use a command prompt, just type winver from the Start button.

Yesterday I started up my older, still Win 10, laptop for a specific reason but forgot all about it for hours. When I came back it had clearly done a Windows update and rebooted, which is what it sometimes does with a count-down warning.

Anyway, I checked the version which was still 1607, but when I went to a new tab in IE11 that too had the grotty MS advertising and links page. As on the other I disabled MS advertising and in Internet Options changed the setting to my usual one.

This MS page is clearly part of the latest update. It calls itself a news feed. I've never seen it before, at least in this format, and it is now the top of the drop down list of options for what happens when you click for a new tab, (defaulting to it after installation as on my main laptop). It used not to be in that list at all.