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General discussion

Desktop/Explorer troubles

Feb 13, 2004 11:20AM PST

To start, my system specs:
IBM Thinkpad - i Series
Windows 98
500 MHz Intel Celeron
64MB of RAM
6 GB of Hard Drive Space total

I am having a problem with my Desktop/Explorer... it seems that when I click the
My Computer icon, it doesn't respond at all. Everything on my desktop works fine
except any direct shortcut/icon that opens up an Explorer window.

It all started when my computer was attacked with spyware/adware... I saw on my IE
taskbar that some crud was installing itself... so I figured, "Heh, these low-budget
punks can't install the program if I shut the laptop off..." so I held the power
button, and it shut off. I turn it back on, I see some spyware/adware stuff on my
desktop. So I shut down the laptop again. I reload the laptop in safe mode and use
Ad-Aware 6 to remove it all. I also remove the Startup List entries in my registry
that were related to the spyware/adware. I figured that the job was done and I could
continue on with what I was doing earlier.

I restart again, everything seems normal... until I click My Computer... it doesn't
respond at all. I try again a couple of seconds later... STILL no response. I begin
to get aggrivated. Everything on my desktop worked fine, except any direct shortcut/icon
that would open up an Explorer window. So I restarted again... and ran a Norton AntiVirus
scan with the latest virus defs. It couldn't find anything. I even try reinstalling
Windows 98 to see if it'd fix the problem. Still no go.

I've also tried Spybot... still no luck.

I use my IE browser to access my files... and it seems that the delete key doesn't
function. If I try to click My Computer, Control Panel, or Windows Explorer after
some time, my system becomes extremely slow...

Now, I only have one possible reason for my problem...

I've noticed that when Explorer crashes and the Illegal Operation window pops up...
I believe that most of the time, the fault is the Visual Basic 6 Runtime DLL, as
it's name/file is in the window. "KERN386.EXE" (dunno if that's right, it had to
do with Kernel) got an illegal operation as well...

What is the problem? Is it a virus? Has a system file been corrupted? Any help/ideas
appreciated, thanks.

Discussion is locked

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Re:Desktop/Explorer troubles
Feb 13, 2004 9:09PM PST

After an aborted spyware installation, you likely have a lot of orphaned files running around clogging up the works. A couple of things to try:

1) Turn back the clock on the registry by opening a command prompt and type in scanreg/restore. Choose a time prior to the problem.
2) Back up your files and reinstall 98.

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Re:Re:Desktop/Explorer troubles
Feb 16, 2004 3:52AM PST

Alright, I will give that a try. (Going back in time with the registry.) I've already tried reinstalling Windows 98. There is no specific error message, just Illegal Operations concerning the files I mentioned earlier.

However, I have noticed that:

1.) Safe Mode can open up icons on the Desktop/etc. without any trouble. (My Computer, Control Panel, Recycle Bin)

2.) Even after a Scandisk (in safe mode), I can't seem to defragment my drive. Is there a better utility out there to do so, that I can download?

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The full error message is required.
Feb 13, 2004 10:27PM PST