Cannot open any programs

[River Pirate]

Hi all. I have a Gateway, with Windows 98 SE. I installed AVG free edition anti virus program. This pc is a friends, and has not seen any maintenance in along time. Ran a scan, and it showed a virus. It healed 7 files, but one could not be healed, and I sent it to the AVG Virus Vault. I do not know what virus it was.

The problem is, I sent shell.com to the vault what ever that is, and now I can't get into any program on the pc. Not even the avg program or the vault. I have desktop, but when I click on any program, even "add remove" in "Control Panel" I get an error message saying " Windows cannot find shell.com", and shows C:\ highlighted and want's me to tell it where shell.com is. Cannot do anything in Safe Mode also. I get the same thing. I can get to windows explorer by right clicking my computer, and clicking explore. I can get onto the web.

I went back to the 5 dates in dos promt, but it did no good.

I have done numerous searchs for shell.com, but come up empty.
Anyone know what to do about this?

[tetonbob]

It sounds like the replies you got from the other forums you posted this query to had you on the right track. No luck yet?

http://www.help2go.com/postt8704.html

http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?t=258341

As far as getting your data off that drive, consider slaving it to another system, although I suppose you run the risk of infecting that one also.

Have you tried looking into restoring the file you locked away in the Virus Vault? Consult the Help file in AVG on how to.

[AnnMarie]

Hi River Pirate, if you are able to run Hijack This and post a log we should be able to clear up the problem relatively easily. Give it a try, go here (http://www.cybertechhelp.com/download.php?hijackthis1977.zip) and download the latest version of Hijack This to a new folder on your drive, unzip it and click on scan. Most of the files listed will be harmless and/or required so do not make any changes, just click on Save Log, copy it and post it back in this thread.

[ComTechSupport]

Somehow the shell.ini was renamed and/or copied to shell.com. Reload 98 or through DOS invoke a copy of the registry before the date of infection. Use scanreg. The shell defines the GUI navigation settings on your desktop. Without it you have no way to move around. So just upgrade 98 on top of itself.

[River Pirate]

Thankyou,

After many posts on other forums and this one, I think you hit it right on the nail head.
Today, I finally was able to run the Operating cd, and get to setup. It ran an hour, and I guess did a overwrite of the operating system.
All files, programs, and folders were saved. I had just got thru burning 2,600 songs onto cd if something went wrong.
When rebooted, everything worked like it should. I dl adaware, and had 1600 spyware files on the pc, ran avg again, and it came up with a virus detected, called Backdoor.Beastdc but it healed one file, and said no viruses detected after healing the one.
I didn't know you could overwrite an operating system, without deleting everything. Can you do it on all operating systems?
A big thankyou to all that posted. This was a weird problem, which I figured was easy to fix and it was.
Thanks again,

Texas River Pirate

[tetonbob]

had 1600 spyware files on the pc

Wow, that is the most I've heard of on one system. Be sure to update Adaware and run it again. Also run Spybot S&D (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html) with the most recent definitions. The 2 are best used together, as one will quite often pick up what the other may miss.

Add SpywareBlaster (http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html) to your regimen, too. It keeps the malware from being installed in the first place.

Be sure to update and run your AV again, as well.

In answer to your question, yes you can install over the top of the Windows OSs. It is known as a dirty install, or repair install. It keeps all your current settings and data, although backup beforehand is always recommended as bad things can sometimes happen.

Glad you're up and running again.