Missing Shortcut message appears repeatedly 3

[overadio]

Running Windows 98 version 2.

Getting message "Missing Shortcut" which
gives a program name and says Windows can't
find that program. This happens when bringing up
Windows. Allows you to cancel the message.

The above happens repeatedly, giving many
missing programs, such as: morzes.exe
8lgari6x.exe, fl1bfqp5.exe, tgaa8bn2.exe,

7fmz8g1w.exe, tgaa8bn2.exe, 02qr5iol.exe and

many other program names.

Have not a clue what caused this. Tried removing
Windows 98 and restoring it. No change.

The program names (above) look bogus to me. Just
my observation.

By clicking on "cancel" for each program, eventually
they stop coming, and from then on Windows seems to
run normally.

Another thing which happened at the same time these
"missing shortcut"'s appeared, several shortcuts
just "appeared" on my desktop and two are still there.

Anyone have any idea what's going on, and how to remedy?
Thanks,
Evan Powell

 

[wcburton]

What are you running for antivirus? Is it up to date on definitions?

Download both Spybot ( secutity.kolla.de ) and Ad-Aware (

http://www.lavasoft.com

) and run them.

Are you running a personal firewall? ZoneAlarm, BlackIce, Kerio, Tiny?

 

[overadio]

To reply to my initial inquiry,
I am running Norton anti-virus, but
must confess it is not up to date.

I am not running a firewall pgm.

Will try Spybot and Ad-adware as
you mentioned.
Thanks,
Evan Powell

 

[gbaughma]

I ran into this on the neighbor's computer. Fought with it for about two days... it was a virus. Even when I found the registry entries that was launching the malware, removed that, and rebooted I had several shortcuts appear in my START --> PROGRAMS --> Startup folder. It crippled the Internet connection (I could ping, but not connect to any sites.... DNS was dead, and even typing the IP into the browser wouldn't work). Highly frustrating, AVG and Norton's couldn't find it. I ended up reformatting.

If anyone figures out what this is, please let me know! Never had that many headaches with a virus before.

--Greg

 

[YellowOnline]

In stead of going start->programs->startupfolder, type msconfig in a DOS prompt (or at start->run) and remove all the not needed from the startuplist.
And surely use an AV-startupdisk, because this looks like being flooded by dummyfiles with a virus.

Peace,

Yellow