windows 98 password--virus?

[cheese]

OK, here's the deal... a couple of nights ago, I was surfing around, and a website locked up on me, so I control-alt-deleted, and then I got a strange looking gray box that was not in the browser and said something like "You will now need to completely reinstall windows" (seriously) and just had an OK tab to push. I didn't push it or anything, and then I got a BSOD... So everthying still works fine, but I get the damn Win98 password login every time I boot up. I never set a password to begin with, and still don't, but it's there every single time. I did notice some links in my favorites that I didn't put there. Also, now my Norton AntiVirus freezes on the 'recycled' folder on a secondary partrition. There's nothing in it (the recycled), although it is now mysteriously hidden from view...
Anyone know anything about this? How can I cancel the login screen? Can I get recycled back to normal? Do I have some lame virus? What would you do? Thanks all...

 

[sohcrates]

to start, you could search your hard drive for *.pwl (password files) and rename it to something .old (or anything to that effect). then, the next time you boot up, it will re-prompt you for a user and password. put in a username, but no password...then it will never prompt you again. (this method basically makes windows reset the password for logon) as for everything else, i would certainly THINK it's a virus, but have no idea which one...i'd say download some kind of free virus program (such as INNOCULATEIT) and run that to see if it can find something that norton can't because norton freezes.

 

[airfoil]

When you reach the logon prompt, hit escape to bypass the login. Find the *.pwl file in the Windows directory & delete it. Go to 'users' in Control Panel & remove yourself from the list of users. Make sure that no other user exists with this applet.

Restart your PC and when prompted fro a login name/pwd, enter your name, leave the pwd field blank & hit enter. This should fix it.

 

[BadThad]

..OR...right click on Network Icon>Properties...look for the drop-down box and change the primary log-on to "Windows Logon".

Wow...that must have been some NASTY script you ran across on the web!! First I've ever heard of that one. What level do you have your security set at and what browser are you using?

 

[TonyT]

What website were you on when the computer locked up? I'd be interested to see what it did if I tried to access it (from a non-networked, crap pc that I have sitting around).

I definitely have too much time on my hands...

 

[cheese]

Hey, thanks for all the help... unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work. I deleted the .pwl file and rebooted, got the password screen, left the password part blank, and it still keeps coming up every time I restart. I did notice the line from that box about 'if you leave it blank, this message will not appear' is now not there. It was there before I deleted the file. I had no users in the users icon, so I created one, deleted it, and the same thing happens with the logon. For a while I got the 'choose a user' box on startup, but that was just as annoying, so I deleted the user. In my network settings, I don't have the windows logon component in the top part of the box (with TCP/IP and all that... I think I remember seeing it there before, but windows logon is still the primary logon) and I get errors about my network not being complete. I'm too lazy to dig out my disk and fix it now, but I'll do that tomorrow...as well as getting another virus scanner... (another instance of me being too lazy +56k sucks...this might be the solution)
As far as my surfing habits, I am on explorer 5 with my security on medium (I know, I know, I must have forgot to bump it up after my last install, lazy again) And I got the script or whatever from some pr0n site...(I was just doing some investigating for a 'friend') I know which one locked it, and I'm not so sure it came from there.. I've checked it out since, and was ok. (I'm not too concerned about this, I've got everything on discs, and usually reinstall every couple months or so anyway) Anyhow, PM me if you REALLY want to know, but I doubt it was from the site that locked it, I have a feeling it came with some freakin popup window. Well, that's all for now, thanks a lot for all the help, and I'll let you know what happens...

 

[Slikkster]

I'd go into your network settings and reinstall the Client for Microsoft Networking and that will ditch your errors about your networking not being complete. Might solve the password prompt issue, too. You can still set it to Windows Logon as primary logon. Run Windoctor from Norton if you have it installed. Otherwise, get Microsoft's freebie, "Regclean" and see if you have some registry settings amiss.

Regclean

You might also want to install a script-interceptor program that alerts you when potentially harmful scripts are about to be executed.
AnalogX.com has some outstanding freeware...small, cool applets, and "Script Defender" is one of them. I'd definitely install that one.

AnalogX Script Defender

Finally, I'd run msconfig.exe and make sure you don't have something funky running at startup that you didn't exactly ask for...

 

[BadThad]

I would try this next:

Right click on NetworkNeiborhood and select properties. At the list, remove EVERYTHING you see and reboot. Then, add back DialupAdapter and TCP/IP and anything else you need.