Major problem : impossible to launch any programm (.exe or .dll). Instead Acrobat Reader opens.

[Daniel]

Hello everybody,

My lawyer has a major issue with his computer. And because he is my lawyer
I need to help him!

He installed SP2 recently and, so far, hadn't met any problem at all.
Since yesterday, whenever he tries to open a program (be it Word or Ad-aware
or msconfig, whatever...) an Acrobat Reader box opens indicating that it
cannot open that particular .exe or .dll file.

He cannot correlate this pbm to anything he could have done.

He cannot remove Acrobat reader as he cannot open the .dll add/remove
programs (sorry I don't know how to translate in English the French
indications).

In other words, he is stuck.

Any idea ?

Many thks in advance for your kind help.

Best regards.

 

[wayne]

it almost sounds like a virus I would try booting in safe mode and running a
full scan of the computer with updated virus definitions.
You can also usually rename .exe files to .com and they will run fine

Wayne

 

[Daniel]

Many thanks, Wayne.

I will do what you suggest and come back to this NG with the results.

Brgds
Daniel

 

[JohnR]

You might try getting a NEW lawyer????
JK, but I had to say it !

 

[Daniel]

Hi Wayne,

My Lawyer tried what you suggested. He cannot even launch his NAV. He gets
the same error message from Acrobat Reader: "Cannot open file..."

Well it seems something went wrong as regards the file allocation.

If you have any idea, please let me know.

Brgds,
Daniel

 

[Daniel]

Hey, don't be so hard on me ! He is good at solving my cases, and he is
working for me right now. Well, I wish he was.
Daniel

 

[Alex Nichol]

He installed SP2 recently and, so far, hadn't met any problem at all.
Since yesterday, whenever he tries to open a program (be it Word or Ad-aware
or msconfig, whatever...) an Acrobat Reader box opens indicating that it
cannot open that particular .exe or .dll file.

He cannot correlate this pbm to anything he could have done.

Go to www.dougknox,com
and on the XP Fixes, look for File Association Fixes (near bottom left).
This is a common enough consequence of having an intrusive virus
removed, though bringing Acrobat reader into the matter is new to me

 

[Daniel]

Hello Alex,

Many thanks for your message.
Actually I got the same suggestion from another NG and went to the dougknox
site, and downloaded the fix.

It didn't work : it was not possible to import the .reg patch by
double-cliking on it. The patch simply opened in Notepad.

He managed somehow to run NAV which indicated the presence of the following
virus :w32netskyD@mm.

He downloaded the fix from symantec, but could not run it.

everytime the same Acrobat reader error message appears.

Amazing, isn't it. It smelles like reformatting, hey?

Tks again and brgds.
Daniel

 

[Alex Nichol]

It didn't work : it was not possible to import the .reg patch by
double-cliking on it. The patch simply opened in Notepad.

Right click on it and Merge. The default for reg files may well have
been set to Edit, for safety

 

[Daniel]

Many thks Alex.
Will try.
brgds,
Daniel

Right click on it and Merge. The default for reg files may well have
been set to Edit, for safety