Windows ME unable to display pages or windows explorer

[Bryan]

A system I was working on, had the home page set to a malicious web site.
The default homepage selections were grayed out. In the process of
troubleshooting this problem, I installed the latest version of IE6, I was
still not able to solve my original problem, so I uninstalled IE6. The
uninstall failed. I then found that I could correct my original problem by
going to Internet options, programs, and "reset web settings." This solved
my original problem. I reinstalled IE6 with no problems. However when I
browse, the pages will not display. The same symptoms happen in any windows
elements that use IE, such as My computer, control panel, and printer
control panel. For example when you open up the control panel, the status
bar displays the text "33 items" but no icons are displayed. I switched to
"Classic Windows" and I can again use the various windows elements; however,
IE 6 still is unable to display anything. I am able to ping Internet
addresses and domain names, so this is not a network problem, nor a DNS
problem. No error messages are displayed at the command prompt or in IE.

Any help would be appreciated.

Bryan Holland

 

[Don Varnau]

Bryan,
It sounds like you had (and still have) malware installed. Try these
parasite removal programs in this order.

First, download and run Run CWShredder from
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html

Then download, install, *update* and run both of these programs:
Ad-aware from http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
Spybot from http://security.kolla.de/ (Remove items listed in red-others are
optional.)
Both programs should be updated after installation- before use.

Security tips and other information at:
Dealing with Unwanted Spyware and Parasites:
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm

Additional useful information at:
The Parasite Fight http://www.aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm
Bugs, Glitches & Stuffups: http://www.mvps.org/inetexplorer/Darnit.htm

Hope this helps,
Don

 

[John® Quincy® Adams©]

Download...
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/cwshredder.zip

Then set your home page to...
http://toolbar.google.com

 

[Bryan Holland]

Thank you for your help.

Ad-aware found 800+ malware and spyware items in Windows. Even after the
repairs were made, IE still would not display web pages. I uninstalled IE6
and then the explorer shell failed to load (GUI would only load wallpaper).
To reinstall IE6 I had to resort to an old trick. I booted to DOS, and
changed the shell line in system.ini to shell=progman.exe so that I had an
environment to launch the IE6 install. Maybe there is a better way, but this
came to mind first. After re-installing IE6, all is well. In hindsight I
should have maybe just done a repair of IE6, but I had done that before (all
the other problems) and it did not solve the problem.

Thanks again.

Bryan

 

[Don Varnau]

Glad you got it fixed.

Don
--
MVP IE/OE
Please reply to the newsgroup so that others may participate.
- - - - -

Thank you for your help.

Ad-aware found 800+ malware and spyware items in Windows. Even after the
repairs were made, IE still would not display web pages. I uninstalled IE6
and then the explorer shell failed to load (GUI would only load wallpaper).
To reinstall IE6 I had to resort to an old trick. I booted to DOS, and
changed the shell line in system.ini to shell=progman.exe so that I had an
environment to launch the IE6 install. Maybe there is a better way, but this
came to mind first. After re-installing IE6, all is well. In hindsight I
should have maybe just done a repair of IE6, but I had done that before (all
the other problems) and it did not solve the problem.

Thanks again.

Bryan

[snip]