Windows XP Core applications will not work after removal of spyware

Hello All,

I have a problem with Windows XP core applications. My Computer, Control Panel, Windows Explorer, and Network Neighborhood, will not work after removal of spyware.
I used Spybot, Ad-Aware SE and HiJackthis. Next I ran Ultra WinCleaner reg clean, and Regseeker, just out of habit. I’ve always used these products with no trouble. I’ve recently installed SP2 with no problems.

Not long after, I visited a few web sites, and had enough intuition to check if I had gotten spyware on my computer, which turned out to be the case, as I stated above. I’ve already run sfc /scannow and then tried to repair Windows. Next I re-ran all the Windows updates including SP2, hoping things might clear up, no such luck. All my other applications are working, as far as I can tell.
Please if anybody can help I would really appreciate it.
Thank you in advance,
WildBill.

 

Hi WildBill and welcome to the forum.

When you say the items are not working, have the icons gone away, icons present but non-functional, can't even launch a piece from a run line as in start => run => explorer.exe or even with a full path as in start => run => c:\windows\explorer.exe

 

Hi Newt, Good to be here,

Just as you asked, the icons are present but non-functional, can't even launch a piece from a run line as in start => run => explorer.exe or even with a full path as in start => run => c:\windows\explorer.exe

I'm not sure where to go with this?

 

you might try restoring the backup files and quarantined items that your applications should have made--1X1 until core apps return. Or if you have a system restore point from before you started your cleaning that might help.

 

If the good suggestion from eprom doesn't help out, take a look in your event logs for interesting items. For one, there should be a detailed report of what sfc did and any failures.

I'd also open a cmd prompt and run chkdsk /r on the system drive. It may fix things for you and even if not, there may be some interesting detail in the event log entry it generates.

There have been several virus thingys that broke .exe files but I would have expected more widespread issues if that was your problem. Also several of them that would mess up the path entry so the PC wasn't finding things but if that were the case, trying to run from a full file spec should have worked.

 

I figured out how to fix my problem. I restarted my pc in safe mode, although it took several attempts, I finally got logged in. Next I re-ran Spybot and Ad-Aware, SB found one more spyware object and AA found 3 more objects. After removing all of the remaining objects I used gpedit.msc to check on my profile status. I had to re-establish my login as the administrator to the pc. After some "housekeeping" all is well.

I want to Thank You both, for your help and suggestions.

 

Thanks for posting back with the solution.