SULFNBK.EXE (short for Setup Utility for Long File Name Backup) is an internal component of the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

(in

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was Software ...

and

Windows ME Windows Me (Millennium Edition) is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the successor to Windows 98, and was released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000, and t ...

) for restoring

long file name Long filename (LFN) support is Microsoft's backward-compatible extension of the 8.3 filename (short filename) naming scheme used in MS-DOS. Long filenames can be more descriptive, including longer filename extensions such as .jpeg, .tiff, an ...

Email hoax

The component became famous in the early 2000s as the subject of an

e-mail Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

hoax A hoax (plural: hoaxes) is a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible. S ...

. The hoax claimed that SULFNBK.EXE was a

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living Cell (biology), cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Viruses are ...

, and contained instructions to locate and delete the file. While the instructions worked, they were needless and (in some rare cases, for example, when the long file names are damaged and need to be restored) can cause disruptions, as SULFNBK.EXE is not a virus, but instead an operating system component. Even people who didn't receive the e-mail were still perplexed if they found the file by themselves (because of its quickly hand-drawn icon), thinking that it could be a virus or

trojan horse In Greek mythology, the Trojan Horse () was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer, Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending ...

. In Windows 98 and ME, where the file existed, SULFNBK.EXE can be found in Windows "COMMAND" directory (a directory that contains command line tools, usually ). A very similar hoax happened with jdbgmgr.exe.

References

External links

Cara menghapus Aplikasi Di Laptop
(Completely Uninstall the Program)

(Symantec)
SULFNBK Hoax virus profile
(McAfee)
Sophos hoax description: SULFNBK
(Sophos)
F-Secure Hoax Information Pages: Sulfnbk.exe virus hoax
(F-Secure)
sulfnbk.exe virus
(Vmyths.com)
SULFNBK.EXE: Should the Windows file SULFNBK.EXE be deleted because it masks a dormant virus?
(Snopes.com)
Virus Hoax Coaxes Users to Delete Files , Kaspersky
Kaspersky) {{Windows commands Windows administration Windows files Virus hoaxes