Hello all. I'm the owner of a Dell Dimension 4100 with a Pentium III, running Win2K Professional. I could really use your help. I must've hit on a really nasty virus or conflict, because my computer refuses to work. I'll get past all the startup stuff fine, but when my background pops up the timer on my mouse simply remains there, permanently "waiting". I've used the task manager to see a single app, something called "Hi" is running, but ending it does nothing. I am still able to function in safe mode, but obviously can't install McAfee etc. in there. I'm going to try cds with basic executables like Stinger next, but I was wondering if you fine folks had some tips or have seen this thing before. Thanks for your time.

I am not quite certain what your situation is. Do you not have an antivirus program installed? If you have one, can you run it while in he safe mode?

Unfortunately it caught me at the tail end of a trial session of Webroot when I hadn't gotten something new yet. Shows what I get for putting such things off. I could probably run it in safemode unless it's the kind of virus that attacks av's, but I can't install any new ones in safemode.

(also I did a scan a week or so before that, so either it's very recent or Webroot didn't detect it.)

Alright...after many virus/adware checks and deletions, I now have my desktop back...sort of. I now get past the startup and all the icons pop up as normal - but my background is a strange blank white, that flashes grey when I L-click it. Right clicking it reveals it's an html document and some strange stats: file://C:\WINNT\Web\desktop.html Size 0 Bytes. And the Date Created is today. When I view the source, it first showed a bunch of code that began with "this message is automatically generated by Win 2000". Now I try to view the source code, and there's just an empty box - no code. I'm beginning to doubt this is a virus at all, but why is an html doc popping up on startup, filling my screen, and appearing *behind* my desktop icons? Anyone seen this kind of thing before?

Also - I searched my Web folder and could not find anything titled "desktop.html". (???)

Eureka! After searching on this very site for Win2K wallpaper problems, I've been able to fix it by disabling/enabling active desktop - now my computer is virus free, adware free, and my background is back. Much thanks to this site for its excellent resources, and thanks to Capt for your concern.