Explorer error virus?

Greetings all-
I have a PC I am working on. No virus protection installed (sigh). Anyway, whatever I try to do, a error box will pop up saying something about Explorer. This box pops up every 15 seconds or so, no matter what you are doing. I cannot get to Control Panel, or install any software. I cannot do anything except click to close the error box. When I do this, it will close out whatever I was trying to open or run. Very frustrating. I believe this to be a virus, but I cannot find any info on it. I need some kind of virus software that I can download and put on a floppy disk (I even cannot run My Computer or Windows Explorer or the Run command to execute programs off the CD).

Any help?

Thank you,

Al

If need be, I can post the exact error message text.

Exactly what is the error message?

Have you run a hardware test and/or swapped the RAM?

Can you get into safe mode? If you can, run msconfig and disable all startup items.

And for a fast, free download, try PC-Cillin Trend

And after you get rid of the virus (if indead it is one), sell the customer Norton AV. IMHO it is the best AV on the market.

Alien, can you install the drive in another machine that has up to date antivirus software installed ? Set it up as a slave or secondary master and then scan it w/ the AV program.If it is something new , you do run the risk of infecting the second machine though !
You don't say what OS you are using , but if it is 98 , have you run SFC ?

OK, here is the latest. This system is Win98. I took the drive out and put in another system and ran NAV on it. The drive had 1 copy of the W97M.Class virus on it. It repaired, I reinstalled the drive in the original system.

I am still getting this error message every 15 seconds: Explorer: this program has...illegal op - invalid page fault - kernel32.dll

I ran msconfig and killed all the startup processes, but I am still getting this. I can boot into safe mode, but from there I do not have access to the CD-ROM.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Al

Download AVG(www.grisoft.com) and make a restore disk and use it to kill of any virus's. From what it sounds like this virus screwed over the system and you will need to format/reinstall even if you do end up killing it.

Also - the most common reason for page faults is video related. Check your video card and driver to make sure that you have the latest driver and that everything is working properly, also try reinstalling Directx.

BTW- Run a good anti-virus program (or two) and write down all the virus' found. Then go to McAfee.com or www.symantec.com and use their virus encyclopedia's to look up the information on the virus' found - to see if the problem you are having is possibly listed in the virus definition encyclopedia.

If all esle fails, reinstall Windows, then display drivers, then directx.

al,
Senn this one a lot. it can happen when your password list files are damaged. try this: search for all pwl files (find *.pwl) DELETE all of them...then reboot. they will recreat automatically

Joshuarat ;)

you know I have had 3 pcs lately with that exact thing, one with 98 2 with Millenium. I was going to post tonight myself about it..
I think it may be from IE5.5 but am not sure, I do know that reinstalling windows and apps does not fix it. reformatted finally after wasting much time..would like an answer also...

ran into this one myself a couple of times and fixed it by replacing the kernal32 file from original install files