I'm having a very frusturating problem with my computer. Everytime I try to open my Internet ExplorerI get an error message the reads " Failed to get data for 'ad' ", and then it simply gives me the dreaded illegal operation box and closes it down. It even gives me that message when I try to get into My Computer or control panels, but I'm able to navagate it anyways dispite it's attempt to screw my over. Anyways, let me give some background of how I think this happened. I click on a "Click Here!" link in someones AOL instant messenger profile and it ended up throwing about 3 Trojan Dropper viruses on my computer. My virus checker caught them but there was nothing that could be done about it. So I did a complete system scan with no success. I just assumed that my virus checker caught it. This was about a week ago. Now I'm having this problem and I can't help but think Trojan virus in the back of my mind. Here's what I've done since the problem came up: -Ran Spybot S&D (No success) -Ran Norton 2002 (No Success) -System Restore to a week ago (Worked at first, but problem cam back.) I'm out of ideas here. Mind you, I can't get internet access without doing a system restore, and even that only works for about an hour or so and then I get that problem all over again. I really don't want to have to reinstall my O/S. Is there any alternative and does anyone think this error is caused by a trojan dropper virus? I'm running Windows XP Professional if that helps. Any help would be much appreciated.

Try the trojan scan at http://www,pcflank.com/ or use a free trial of a highly recommended trojan program that they recommend like; TDS, Trojan Remover, Tauscan, Trojan Hunter, BoClean(not a free trial, but 100% warranty and is a great program that is used by many universites).

Could you possibly give me some links to some of these sites and programs. Although, like I said, my IE doesn't work. So I'll have to run a system restore so I can get an hour or two of web surfing before it screws up on me again.

http://www.pcflank.com/ You will see the various scans on the left hand side of the page, use the GFI TROJAN SCAN. PC Flank has links to several trojan programs that you can use for a free trial at their site.

I currently am having the same problem, and it looks like there are thousands of others having it too. Please let me know if you find an answer. In the meantime, I am working around it. I booted my system in safemode with network (press f8 when booting up computer) and downloaded netscape. It works, but I would like to get my explorer back. P.S. I did redo my op system and it didn't work.

After doing more research, one sight said to delete the following file c:\windows\system32\cpr.dll I was afraid to delete anything and renamed it to cpr.old It worked, no more error messages. And my computer still works, so I guess it is safe to delete it. Hope this helps

I had the same problem. I run win 98. If any of you are using DAP (download manager). Get rid of it. It is full of spyware I uninstalled it and it would not uninstall properly. If you do not want to delete system32/cpr.dll download a program called East Tec Eraser. You can use it for 30 Days free trial. When installed, use the first option of "erase permanently erased files permanently. This will erase all the files that you thought had been erased from your system. This fixed my problem.