Please help? Runtime error / wipes everything off desktop

I keep having a box pop up

This program has preformed an illegal operation and will be shut down.

After this box pops up, it isn't long that this other box pops up
and says

Runtime Error
ProgramC\\Windows\Explorer.EXE
Abnormal Program termination

When the runtime error comes up, when you click ok the whole desktop disappears and you have to restart the computer to get it to do anything.
Could someone help me out?

 

Do you have any antivirus and/or spyware programs installed
on the PC ? Are they up to date ? Have you run them ?
regards

 

I just checked for viruses last week. Didn't find any. I'm not sure what spyware is though?

hope this helps.

my friend told me that runtime errors were generally a win 98 bug, but she isn't sure h0w to fix it. that's why I'm asking on here. thanks for any info

 

Spyware/Hijacked
SpyBot Search & Destroy
Ad-Aware
I would say to get the Spybot, download and install. Have it scan the system, if it asks to be allowed to run at next bootup, allow it. Remove everything that is identified in red type, they will be checked already. What is identified in black or green type is not anything to really worry about, as this program is very intensive in it's scan.
About the runtime errors, it is not Windows 98, it is an executable running. In most cases as a result of bad coding of a program created using Visual Basic. It just so happens that a lot of times it is spy/adware.

 

I went and downloaded the spyware like you said. I installed it and restarted the computer. I opened spyware and started scanning. It gets so far and freezes up. Like the green bar at the bottom of the screen goes halfway over and then the numbers stop on 2957 which I'm assuming that's what number of files it's on. I've done this 4 or 5 times. and it stops on the same file. I've even left it for 30 min. to see what happens. Do you have any ideas on what I should do now???

thanks for all your help. I believe if I can get this to work, it will help alot.

 

ok disreguard the last post by me. i left it alone for an hour and it finally finished. i'm going to download the adware too.

 

Spybot has a bug that makes it hang when it searchs for C2.lop. This only occurs on some systems. To get around it, open spybot in advanced mode and in the left pane click on excludes. Find C2.lop in the list and put a checkmark in front of it. Then try running the program.

Guess I should edit this. I didn't read your last post close enough. I have to quit doing that. I'll leave the first part here anyway in case it's the cause of it taking so long. I've run into this twice. The first time I gave up on it after 10 minutes of it just sitting there trying to find C2.lop. The second time I shut it down right away as I knew how to get around it. Perhaps it would have finished if I'd waited longer. You might try my suggestion anyway just to see if it runs faster. I'm kinda curious.

 

You say that you scanned for viruses, but did you update your anti-virus before doing that? Most anti-virus software that's pre-installed on a PC has virus definition files that are at least a year out of date.

If you did update your anti-virus, and all the spyware/ adaware/etc. came up negative, it could be corruption in windows. Simply re-install windows overtop of itself. This does not erase any data/drivers/etc., simply restores some of the OS system files to a pristine state. I have found this fixes similar probelms.

If you did not update your anti-virus, then I suggest you do so, and scan your PC again.

 

well I went to download.com and downloaded the newest version and run it, Because my cd rom doesn't work. This is about the 4th one we've put in this computer. So most things I have to pay and download it from the internet.

thanks for all your info

 

yes it's Norton