Not a valid win32 application

[spike232]

I had a virus on my computer, it was a Kak.hta virus that did it. I deleted all the things I was supposed to delete, according to the steps that I got from the folks at Mcaffee. Now I am getting a message everytime I try to use a .exe file..&quot;C:/xxx/xxx/xxx is not a valid win32 application&quot;...what's strange is that I can go into the &quot;explore windows&quot; screen, and I can open up several of my applications, IF I click on a saved file in that application.If I try to use the .exe file to open it I get the above message...could anyone tell what's wrong with this?<br><br>thanks <br><br>spike232

 

[Guest_imported]

Spike - how did you fix this?&nbsp;&nbsp;I've the same problem with MS Word 97.<br><br>Regards,<br><br>Peter<br><A HREF="mailto:macmac99@tesco.net">macmac99@tesco.net</A><br>

 

[fenris]

Spike, your problem is that when you try to open an .exe file it complains saying that there is nothing to open it with? I had a trojan that did the same thing, it replaced the file association for .exe. So every time that an exe was started, it fired up the trojan. Stupid norton, caught the trojan before it could do any damage. Unfortunatly it left my system crippled, I could not even envoke regedit. Luckily I had a backup copy of my registry, I simple restored it and everything was back to normal. Thank the lucky stars. After that incident I had thought about what I would have done before reinstalling windows. I forget the file that it was complaining about, so I can't really tell you the association that has to be set. Anyway hopefully someone else can explain the exact reg settings that need to be set. Here are the two ways that I thought might be possible to reset the association between exe's and the program tha runs them. <br>1) rename regedit.exe to regedit.com, this may work although I have not tried it.<br>2) Have some one export the setting from there working registry as a *.reg file. copy this file to your computer and double click on it. This will import the setting to your registry and then you should be able to run programs again.<br>If all else fails,<br><br>3) Reinstall Windows<br><br>Good Luck,<br><br> <p> fenris<br><a href=mailto:fenris@hotmail.com>fenris@hotmail.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>