The joy of registry cleaners...

[zersli]

Such a strange thing occurred to me yesterday. Apparently, there's like hundreds of freeware antivirus programs out on the net. But looking for registry cleaners, it's close to impossible to find something free

Comments

[djdrocco]

After a little bit of Google research, there appear to be many viruses that infect explorer.exe. Have you tried running your scans in safe mode? You might also want to physically quarantine your computer for the scans (unplug the internet). And try Hijack This, too.

[doctorzaius]

Yes, Hijack This. I mentioned it in the chat room. I can't stress enough how great a program it is.

It may be a little tricky to work, though.

[runedot]

Another method is to get an explorer.exe file from a friend and replace the buggered one with it.

I dunno if it works with explorer.exe, but since it works for every other system file that's buggered on me in the past (which, admittedly, totals a mere two incidents when there was one specific file that was buggered rather than the whole system).

[djdrocco]

If you do this, make sure your friend has the exact same OS as you, and back up the original explorer.exe just in case.

[runedot]

This would be prudent, yes.
I dunno if any of the windows updates alters explorer.exe in any way either. It's possible, but even then, it should still work without the additions of those updates. There may be possible glitches if the explorer.exe you replace with is modified with some updates that you don't have, but at least that'll be better than one that doesn't work at all.

[zersli]

Eh; after some trying here and there I just ran the System Recovery program. Runs smoothly now. I still wonder what was wrong though...