Today's plagues not only infect the files but leave changes in the registry that are NOT virus in nature but leave the user reeling under a wave of system problems.
Without exact error messages and the name of the PESTS that had been found, then not much help can be offered.
The shutdown issue can be worked by reading the Shutdown Article at http://www.aumha.org/articles.htm
If this was my machine ALL PESTS and PARASITES are banned with the help of the Anti-Parasite Suite I note at http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-6132-0.html?forumID=32&threadID=1313&start=0 with a note that CWSHREDDER moved to http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html
In closing, we only lose what files we didn't backup.
Bob
I am running win98se on a HP 6545c. I cannot open a Print Shop program. I keep getting a page saying 'Explorer caused a general protection fault in module KRNL386.EXE at 0001:000075a2'. If I try to uninstall it I get 'DLL. file missing'. Sometime I receive the faults/errors while going into other programs too. I have a lot of documents I cannot open because the program won't open now, is there another way to access them? (I can from another computer which is networked to it but is a major pain). I found a few infected files and cleaned them but still problems. I also have a shutdown problem now-just hangs on last page. Do you recommend reverting back to a older version of IE then reinstall 6.0, (what I have now)? I hate to do a system recovery with my CD.

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