Please help! nothing works!

[Dieselman]

Your pc cannot be new if your running XP. Unless its a custom built machine. Try booting in Safe Mode and running a system restore. Do you have your XP cd to reformat?

[jmc333]

XP was preinstalled by the university. tried safe mode, and if i boot safe mode w/ networking a window pops up and asks if i want to do a system restore. I hit yes and it says system restore cannot protect me and to please restart and try again. I looked in my WINDOWS file and like the first 50 things are all blue and say %Uninstall% is that normal?

[Dieselman]

System Restore Protect you? What? System Restore has nothing to do with security. So you cannot run rkill. You cannot run a bootable cd. Did you try installing MBAM? There is also Dr.Web Curit and Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool. Try those. if all those fail then your only choice is to wipe out the computer and reformat it but you will need an XP cd to do this and a valid license.

[jmc333]

Yeah i thought it was weird too but that's what it said "System Restore cannot protect you at this time. Please restart and try again." Yeah i have MBAM installed as well as a butt load of other tools on the usb but i cant very well run them if i cant run any .exe's remember?
Anymore ideas before the dreaded reformat option? (it'd would be a total pain in the ass because i have no install cd and at this point i'd probably upgrade too Win 7 o i'd have to wait for that in the mail and in the meantime do all my school work on my Mom's mac [what im on now].)
Thanks :S

[Dieselman]

The only last thing you can try is Emsisoft's Emergency Kit. You can run a scan from a command prompt.

http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/eek/

But first try running Combofix.

http://majorgeeks.com/Combofix_d6402.html

Did you try Dr.Web Curit?

http://www.freedrweb.com/cureit/?lng=en

[jmc333]

I'll try those tomorrow, for now though, im calling it a night. Thanks for your continued help Diesel. I'll let you know how those go tomorrow :S

[bogdan]

It appears that association for .exe files is broken. This was probably caused by malware that altered registry settings.

This page contains detailed instructions on how to fix this issue. Make sure you download the appropiate reg file for your Windows version (download the WinXP_EXE_Fix.reg file using a good PC and copy it on a usb stick), then proceed to step 2.

It is worth giving it a try, maybe you can restore your system to a somewhat working state until you are able to format and re-install. The most important thing to remember from this experience is that system restore is not enough, also it doesn't matter what antivirus you use, since pretty much any antivirus on the market will miss some new malware. Once you reinstall your system you'll need to choose a drive imaging program and image your system partition on a regular basis.

[Tweak]

Ok I don't like to jump in when others are already helping but it is apparent this is a rather easy fix which has yet to be resolved, along the lines of what bogdan stated you have a broken .exe association which is commom like proxy settings being changed as Dman mentioned earlier, common malware infection mess. The best solution I have been using involves a .com file and not an exe or .reg file since those do not always work, the .com however works every time and has never failed and is what I use, just yesterday for an older lady as a matter of fact with similar problems.

Pop over here and download exefix_xp.com utility. http://windowsxp.mvps.org/exefile.htm
Just stick it on a usb stick and run it, done, so quick and easy and afterwards you can run Mbam and the other apps and do the remaining cleanup. Should knock this all out in a few hours max assuming you do some full scans and get back to enjoying the PC rather than fighting it. Have a good day and the rest of the advice given will get you squared away once you have knocked out the exe problem with this .com type fix.

[Dieselman]

Wow..................................Nice find Tweak.

[Tweak]

Wow..................................Nice find Tweak.

Ya know on forums and with phone texting it isn't always easy to know if one is sincere or sarcastic(kinda dislike texting anyways, always seeing people misunderstand, sorry off topic, just thought about it)...I'm going with sincere here but this did make me think about that...haha. Anyways, long time use and never fails so this is a great one for the toolkit for those that would normally use other fix methods, this one has never failed me for a few years at least.