I was really, extremely hoping someone could help me with this.

It seems there have been changes made to my registery that no longer allow me to open exe, .com and I'm sure other files. And all shortcuts have been renamed to ".ink" files which don't do anything.

Furthermore when I double click any exe file in windows explorer/my computer it "copies" instead of opens, same as if I were to highlight the file and press enter. Very weird.

Since this happens I can't use very many programs, suprisingly I cant use Avant Browser from my start, I dont' know why. But I'm glad I can. I can double click video files and VLC will popup allowing me to watch them, but if I tried to open VLC independently it doesn't work.

I get a weird window popping up before I reach my log in screen when rebooting, it has unreadable characters "Squares" in it and I have to hit "ok" to continue.

Ways I've tried to solve the problem:
there's a virus which the name escapes me that won't let people open exe's and a fix for that was to download a .com file, but I can't even open that.
I've used system restore many times, and it DOES fix the problem until a couple seconds after I reach my desktop, in that time Ad-Watch pops up and says that something is trying to change my registery, in which I block all 50 or so objects. but afterwards the change seems to have already been made. But thankfully Avast! antivirus is already running (only after system restore) so I got a chance to scan my two hard drives, both of them came up clean of viruses.

Also, the only way to run system restore is to use safe mode and select no at the desktop so that it pops up on it's own.

I've downloaded the fixswen.inf, but when I try and install it it doesn't know what program to open the grpconv.exe with! *sigh*

If anyone has any suggestions I would be glad to hear it, I really don't want to reformat either harddrive, so I'm using that as a last resort.

thanks.

Have you tried opening msconfig and checking what is opening on startup? Uncheck everything and restart. Then try running the virus stuff.

AMD 2600 o/c to 2.2ghz
1 gig PC2700 333mhz
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Dual 160gig Hdd's
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
Radeon 9800 pro 128mb

FOR lnk FILE FIX:
http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/80521.html
(see Response 3 and 4)

--------------------
You Cannot Start Programs (.exe Files) When Your Computer Is Infected with the SirCam Virus

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;311446

Can't open EXE files

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555067

Steve, You may also want to try the possible sluiotion in my Response Number 19 in the thread at the link below.

Possible File Associations Fix

Tufenuf

Steve, After re-reading your post I saw that you tried the Fixswen.inf fix so please disregard my previous response number 2.

Tufenuf

Ian C:
I haven't tried that, and in order to open msconfig, I'll have to hope I can type it in the "run" before the the registry gets corrupted after I use system restore, so I'll try that soon.

Chuck 2:
"kelly fix" didn't work for me, I cannot open .reg files.

the other two fixes didn't work either, since I can't use ".com"...

man... whatever's on my computer is bad stuff. But still your help is very appreciated.

Ok, well!

I restarted in safe mode and command prompt *hits self on head* which helped a lot. I finally got to use .exe and .com's so I went into regedit, imported the "linkfilerestore.reg" which worked. I ran the sircom virus scan thing, but that said it didn't pick anything up.
after that I started the computer back up in just regular safe mode, things were working... so I installed the fixswen.inf
(it didn't actually say it did anything but I'm assuming it did)

and here I am in regular mode, there are only two boxes checked off in msconfig those are "NvCpl" and "ctfmon" do I need both of these?

on an unrelated note, I always have "blengine, channelup and (empty space) in my start up, I tried following websites on how to get rid of them, but it didn't work, any suggestions or links?)

thanks again I'd say my computer is ALMOST back now.. I'm going to run virus scan again and cross my heart...

Another heads-up.
After running virus scan it still didn't come up with anything. I ran registry mechanic and fixed any and all errors, and it seems things are smooth. Things have been deleted from my startup however, like winamp and my antivirus software... I'm not sure how to get those back.

Still when I double click ".com" files it just dims the icon and nothing happens... and winamp doesn't work either...

*shrugs* I really wish I knew what was wrong now when everything LOOKS so ok..

I have the exact same problem as you. Exact. I was able to run all of the file fixes through regedit (ctrl alt delete, file - ctrl+run type in regedit.exe) and then import the files and run various fix programs.

I had no .exe, .com, .reg, .lnk and some others perhaps. I don't know what causes this, I also have the funny text at log ins eg. "莠â_)" that is random. I don't think I've fixed the problem at all as I can't identify the virus therefore it has not been deleted!!!

Adwatch/adaware originally discovered the problem and since I blocked all of the registry modifcations thats when the trouble began. So why is it that I'm fine as long as I don't run adwatch? As soon as I run adwatch and block these registry change attempts that all of the files then don't work..?

Thanks to anyone... What virus is this called? There are multiple cases. It is close to some sircam viruses but seems worse and unidentified?