Windows XP: How to find the files with 2 characters only?

Question

recently I found back door on my laptop. I t was generating many files with random names only 2-3 characters only. The most of them is empty. How can I find files only with 1 to 3 characters generated in the last 30 days? Thanks Arman.

Answer 1

Use the search facility in Windows Explorer and use the '?' wildcard character.

Search for files names matching ?, ?? and ???. If the files have extensions, try ?.*, ??.* and ???.*.

You can also specify the created date.

If your laptop has/had a backdoor, you really should be less concerned with the files on the system and more concerned with reinstalling your laptop, as it is the only sure way to close the back door and remove any root kits.

Answer 2

I think that this would work:

C:\>dir /s/b ???

Answer 3

It's probably easier to find empty files generated in the last 30 days.

Go to Start menu - Search

Click When was it modified select Past month or manually pick the dates.

Click What size is it select Specify size at most 1KB

Answer 4

Using Powershell:

$date = get-date

$olddate = $date.adddays(-30)

get-childitem -path c:\ -Recurse | where-object {$_.basename.length -lt "4" -and $_.creationtime -gt $olddate}