My neighbor has a older HP desktop computer with a Pentium III 166 mhz cpu and Windows 95. She tried doing one of those procedures where you delete old files and programs to better optimize the computer performance. She also tried in the same session to install the Bluelight.com ISP disk. I'm not sure exactly what she did, but after reboot all she has now is the windows wallpaper. No desktop items, no tool bar or start button or anything. Disk drives (CD or A http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif do not work and the only thing I have been able to do is point the mouse to the bottom of the screen where the start button should be and right click which brings up the task window allowing me to browse around. Cannot run any program or drives from here when I try to do so. When I do the CTRL/ALT/DEL procedure the only listings for end task are task ans vshwin. Explorer is not listed. Any help here would be greatly appreciated and I hope I have supplied enough details..Thanx

Use the [F8] key to boot to a command prompt, and see what registry backups are available.

Commands are in bold keys to press in spaces necessary in commands will be denoted by an underscore ( _ ). Use a space instead of the underscore posted here.

At the command prompt type:
[b]dir_c:\windows_system.* [Enter]
Write down all system files AND dates except system.ini. Dates are important.
Then:
dir_c:\windows_user.* [Enter]
Write down all user files found and dates.

Post those here, we'll try to figure out which ones to replace. The command lines above will also work if you use a boot disk and type them from an A:\> prompt.

What this will do is tell us what registry files are available. System.dat and user.dat are the current ones, the previous backups will be system.old, system.da0 etc. Those are what we're looking for. Dates are necessary, post those too, each on the same line as the filename. We'll need to find two that match, system and user, with the same dates, before the problem occurred. Then we can try to rename them, and thus replace the registry, and you should be good to go.

Anyone else has any other ideas, or sees anything I missed, please post it. Scanreg is out, since this is win95 and it wasn't already installed.

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Soon as I come up with all the answers...they change the questions!!

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

Hello there! I'm brand new to the forum! My registration sparked from a need of help as usual >.< I recently was diagnosed with the Virtumonde trojan, or one of it's forms I'm not really sure. I procceded to use Ad-aware, Spybot S&D, and a veritable menagerie of anti-sucky-trojan programs including the Virtufix and the like. It states that they have successfully removed all of the trojan from my computer and every time I scan it it comes up with nothing, even Avast! when I reboot finds nothing, however my Desktop (Toolbar, icons, can't right click on desktop) are all missing when I boot up. If I boot up in safe mode they are there... however that doesn't do me much good as it is safe mode and I don't want to have to boot that for the rest of my life >.< PLEASE if you can think of anything I'll follow your instructions to a T! I'd really REALLY like to figure out how to fix this problem. I love learning new things! Here's some other things that might help.

I can access the internet and all the good websites (anti-viral websites sickos =P ) and all my programs via ctrl-alt-dlt. That is how I'm doing this right now. I can view all processes as well as restart or shut down at will. I just can't see the desktop (Just my lovely backdrop of Diablo 3 ;) ) But other than that I can't do everything, even though everything seems to be working normally. Help if possible!! Thank you in advance for reading my drivel!

Rummy

(Oh yeah it also altered my system restore so I don't have any dates other than the time of the infection -.- So I just steered clear of even trying that... ANd first my desktop just blinked in and out for a while.. but then it stopped and went away completely.)

Try starting your own thread in the appropriate sub-forum...

http://www.pcguide.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=34

Read the first few 'sticky' threads in that forum vand follow the directions in the first one...the one on how to post a HijackThis log.