Can't access regedit or command prompt

[Mucho]

I had a virus McAfee cleaned it however, now I can't access regedit or command prompt from the RUN command. Everything else seems to work fine.

BTW XP pro with SP2

 

[evilharp]

Try making a shortcut to regedit. If the shortcut doesn't work, you're PC is probably still infected.

You may have a "Rootkit" on your system. Rootkits are extremely hard to get rid of (fresh install is the current 100% solution), and they are very effective at blocking attempts to get rid of them (i.e. locking out regedit, command prompts, hiding themselves and their dependencies).

Can McAffee update itself?

Try this tool: http://www.f-secure.com/blacklight/ It is beta, but it might be able to ID a problem.

EDIT: What virus did McAfee find? I ask, as some viruses are currently associated with Rootkits (they install, protect and spread each other).

 

[daniel49]

make a copy of regedit and change its extension to .com or .bat and then click it.

These will be executable just like .exe provided the virus hasn't disabled those extensions too

If it works this will allow you to clean registry of necessary items...which you will need to research to find what and where they are. Depending on which virus it was.
Sounds like Mcaffee did a halfarse job.

 

[Mucho]

From the System32 folder I can execute Regedt32.exe but not Regedit.exe, also I booted from the XP CD and did a Repair but that did not fix it.

 

[xtknight]

Try going in a command prompt and typing this:

%SYSTEMROOT%\regedit.exe

If that doesn't work, delete regedit.exe and replace it with regedt32.exe renamed.

 

[Mucho]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Try going in a command prompt and typing this:

%SYSTEMROOT%\regedit.exe

If that doesn't work, delete regedit.exe and replace it with regedt32.exe renamed.

Thx. Ok now I can execute regedit from RUN. However, someting is still not quite right because I cant execute CMD from RUN.