Windows 98 Locked me out Completely

I recently installed Norton Anti- Virus in my Computer. After h installation was complete, I recieved a notice that there was a virus in my Operating System. I quarantined the virus. After that I started recieving a message after Win98 loaded--- Unable to Locate " yimh.exe " file. Nthing in the operating system works anymore w/o geting the same message over & over. Even to shut the system down I reciev the same message. I have tried locating this file, to no avail. I hope someone can ffer me some advice on this pedicamnt I am currently in. Thanks

 

That missing file was the virus. It was set up like that to ensure infection. Use notepad and open the c:\windows\system.ini file. At the top there will be a heading name [Boot]. Scroll down to where you see a line like this "shell=Explorer.exe ". That is all it should say. If it says "shell=Explorer.exe yimh.exe ", delete the yimh.exe. Then run regedit.exe and search the registry for yimh, and delete all references for it.

 

MarkP

I did the following things you told me to do in the NotePad. I don't understand the thing about the "Run Regedit.exe" Can you explain that a little more in depth. I am also still getting the message "Unable to locate "yimh.exe ". Let me know & I will try it out. I do appreciate the assistance you have given me so far.

 

Regedit.exe is a utility found in your windows folder that allows you to edit your registry. This can be fatal if misused. Regedit does not make any backups on it's own.
Since I can tell that you have not edited your registry before, I will point you to two free downloadable programs which might find your problem for you.
One is called Regclean from Microsoft. You just run it and then click for it to fix errors. It will make a backup of what it does in a file called Undo(today'sdatetime).reg in the same folder Regclean is in. It can be found here:
http://download.com.com/3000-2094-881470.html
The other is called Regcleaner by Jouni Vurorio. You can get it here:
http://www.jv16.org/
I would first install the Regcleaner, then copy the Regclean (no need to install this one, just unzip and copy) into the same folder as Regcleaner. I do this to make it easier to find the undo files so I can right click them and choose edit to see what was removed.
First run Regclean. Then open Regcleaner, click on Tools. Then select Registry Cleanup, Do Them All. When it displays a list of errors, select them and click on Remove Selected Entries. This program will make backups of what was removed, found under the Backups tab.
Don't be surprised if a lot of errors are found, as uninstall programs do leave entries behind. When Regcleaner first opens, you will see a list of programs listed, some you may have uninstalled before, those can be removed.
If you still get the yimh error after this, open Regedit.exe by clicking on the Start button and selecting Run. Then type in Regedit.exe. After it opens, select Edit, then Find. Type in yimh and select Find Next, and wait. Just delete the yimh.exe and the %1 which may follow it, nothing else. It should appear in the right panel. Keep hitting Find Next until you get the message the registry has been searched.
I believe Regclean and Regcleaner will find it for you, so you may not need to use Regedit. Just look through the undo file that Regclean creates and the entries Regcleaner finds for you.