Can't get Explorer to work after SirCam virus

[dmcowen674]

Hi everyone,

I haven't posted or asked for help here in the Forum in ages since I have been pretty much staying away from computers because of what is happening with me (freemcowen.com), you could say I have been pretty soured by computers, the Internet and technology in general. Anyway they are not going away, I know this is old but I have a neighbor that has been hit with the SirCam virus. This is my first time seeing this destructive virus first hand. I downloaded and ran Symantec's Fixsircam.exe program. The Virus is gone from the system but Internet Explorer will not go to many websites, it just gives the perverbial DNS error. Explorer seems to be working better inside of AOL (their ISP) and completely bombs outside of AOL when you run Explorer by itself. I have already uninstalled and then reinstalled both Dial Up Networking as well as all Network properties. Also deleted all cookies and tmp Internet files. Any ideas other than re-installing Windows 98 SE and AOL all over again? Thanks Dave

 

[santar72]

Have you try reinstalling explorer over itself or upgrading to a newer version? This will usually cause the old explorer to back up itself and a fresh explorer with all default setting. You can then move all your favorites over and delete the back up when things are running fine.

 

[Psychoholic]

Call me overreactive if you will, but if he caught a virus when the definitions are available there's no telling what other crap or problems he's got now. IMO the best thing he can do at this point is wipe the installation clean and start over. A pain in the ass no doubt, but better to be safe than sorry. Besides maybe he'll learn a lesson while reinstalling everything and cussing.

I cannot stress enough, make him update those definitions frequently. I push virus defintions to the workstations at work an average of 10-12 times a month.

 

[dmcowen674]

Thanks guys, I will try re-installing just Explorer itself. That may be difficult because it is already the most current version, we'll see. They, like many people believed they were protected simply because they saw Norton Protection on Boot up and Icon in the Sys tray. It came pre-loaded from Gateway but they never updated the Virus definitions from November 1999, of course I told them that is a good as not having any Anti-Virus protection at all. It was a false sense of security. I keep the definitions current as possible and a worm snuck in last week. Have no idea how it did, it is a .scr . Also a virus came in from those blasted Pop up ads called seek(1).htm .