I have a machine from which I removed over 1000 spies and a couple dozen virus infected files. It now appears to be clean, but if I double click on any folder, it opens a File Search dialog instead of the folder. To open the folder, I must right click and select Open. Also, for some reason, the first part of the path in the "Search in" box is missing ("indows\desktop" instead of "C:\windows\desktop") I assume this is left over from one of the virii. Any thoughts?

Take a look at this key : HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\open Here is mine: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\open] @="" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\open\ddeexec] "NoActivateHandler"="" @="[ViewFolder(\"%l\", %I, %S)]" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\open\ddeexec\application] @="Folders" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\open\ddeexec\topic] @="AppProperties" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\open\ddeexec\ifexec] @="[]" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\open\command] @="C:\\WINDOWS\\Explorer.exe /idlist,%I,%L" There is also something i found at HKLM : REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\Folder\shell\open] @="" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\Folder\shell\open\ddeexec] "NoActivateHandler"="" @="[ViewFolder(\"%l\", %I, %S)]" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\Folder\shell\open\ddeexec\application] @="Folders" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\Folder\shell\open\ddeexec\topic] @="AppProperties" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\Folder\shell\open\ddeexec\ifexec] @="[]" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\Folder\shell\open\command] @="C:\\WINDOWS\\Explorer.exe /idlist,%I,%L" I spose these should be the same on all 98's, maybe yours look different ? Probably more to it than that but you can look start there. Best

Shut down the computer and choose to restart in msdos mode. At the c:\windows> prompt type: scanreg/fix and enter. When it's done, reboot and see if anything's been fixed. If not you may need to reinstall windows over itself.

go to Start - Run type Regedit and click OK if this problem occurs with folders: go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell click shell at the right rightclick Default value choose edit in the value data box type: none click OK If this problem occurs with drives: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell etc.

here is the microsoft article about this the part about how to edit the registry is written very BADLY (as so many of the Microsoft instructions), so I rewrote it in the previous answer http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q321186

I've been remiss in posting my thanks, but thanks. JUBalsams got me started, and then Ding's regedit fixed it.

ty ding, fixed it for me