Help! .EXE Blocking Virus-of-Doom

[MatrixmaN]

I've got a virus.

Actually, I've had this virus for who knows how long. I installed Norton AntiVirus 2003 and when I rebooted it said I had a trojan horse Virus.......great right?

Well anyway, I tried to sanitize my computer but it said it couldnt delete the virus, then it also found the virus in winamp and tried to delete it. No avail. It did manage to delete 1 part of the virus somewhere but then the next time I rebooted my computer I couldn't open any programs......why you ask?

Well gradually after getting severely pissed I found out that I could click and open anything except .EXE Program files, but I could open audio, movies, text and whatnot. So in essence I can't re-run the anti-virus software to clean my computer.

It hasn't just affected 1 of my drives it has affected all of my drives...I can't open any EXE on any partition on any drive (I only have 2 drives but 1 drive has 3 partitions and the other drive has 1).

AHA, BUT I FOUND A SLIGHT WORK AROUND. Though I still can't open any EXE's. I duel boot WINDOWS 98 and WINDOWS XP PRO. This virus is affecting Windows XP. When I boot up in 98 my files are fine, I can run exe's BUT there's somethin weird. My XP boot drive letter has been renamed from E:/ to G:/ and the "New" E:/ wont open..........could this somehow be something the virus did? Could it be affecting XP?

The only way I got online was that my folders still opened tho I couldnt open Explorer I used my folders to get online. Any help = Appreciated. Even remarks like format. I just need some suggestions. It seemed trying to fix the virus activated something within it or some bullsheeet like that.

Thanks again.

[VHockey86]

If you can get online with the 98 partition try going here
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/hous...start_corp.asp

[T-32]

are you shutting down the system restore feature in xp before trying to get rid of the virii... if not it is still in there,,, don't know if that would be effective in your situation,,,

[MatrixmaN]

Norton Killed My Computer....

I gave Norton 2003 to somebody and they ran it too, it found viruses on their comp and deleted them as well. BUT, the same exact message popped up afterwords.

"Windows cannot find 'C:\_______' please make sure you typed the name correctly and then try again. To search for a file, click the start button, and then click Search."

Now this appears not just on mine after running norton but on my friends too. Could it be blocking me from using Executable files or something? If so, why and how to I fix this.

I found a temporary way to get around it. I had to use the "Open As" Right click menu to select a file that had nothing to do with anything i was trying to open. Then find the program exe and open it.......I don't know how, but it works...

[MatrixmaN]

Wow, I feel stupid, but then again not.

It wasn't Norton, it was just doin it's job. It was the trojan that attached itself to a file called "winamppw.exe" in my C:\windows\ directory. That files is used to open EXE's it says.

Norton automatically deleted that file without bothering to fix it.

[Epyon9283]

I got that virus a while ago. After deleting winampw.exe, no exe files would run. Had to connect to my registry from another computer on my network and change the setting there so winampw.exe was no longer associated with exe files.

[iNeb]

If it that bad, backup your files and reformat, then scan your files with a trojan cleaner and norton and if they are fine, restore them

[Micro Bean]

That is kinda weird Now from what I know Norton has serveral option when it comes to detecting Viruses Norton automatically asks you whether you want to delete the virus, quarentine it or fix and delete. That is kinda strange that Norton would automatcially delete it. Maybe 2003 version does that I have a 2002 which works extremely well. I had a 4 virus in one day which was a Trojan Virus and I just told Norton to Quarentine it. then later down the road I had Norton delete it and I never encountered that problem.

[MatrixmaN]

That's actually what I did, but I had to do it manually. I used the "open with" command to work around the missing file, then opened the Quarantine program and restored the virus-laden winampw.exe and Quarantined the damn thing. Now it works.

But norton doesn't give me the option to fix-quarantine-delete it. It just automatically deletes it when it finds it running tho the select choice option is chosen in settings.

Weird, but now it works.