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Possible virus - RDZRE.EXE?

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3 replies

by computab

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This system has pentium I, 64MB, 3GB, Win95. It starts to desktop, but imediately gives an error window, 'Windows cannot find RDZRE.EXE, needed for running Windows applications.' Try to load anything, access control panel or My computer only brings the same message. same result in Safemode. I put the hard drive in another system as a slave, with updated A Squared and Ad-Aware, which both removed viruses/ pests. I then ran updated Norton Antivirus which did not find anything. I put the hard disk back in its own system, but still get the same error message. I searched in Google for RDZRE.EXE. Is this a new virus?

3 replies

by thechas

While it is acting like a virus, I think it is more like ad-ware or a browser hijacker.

When you placed the drive in the second computer, you were only able to do half of the job of cleaning the system.

Your virus scanner and AdAware found the files that cause the infection.
However, the registry for the W95 system did NOT get all keys cleaned.

This is because the registry was just another file to the software. The active registry that was looked at was the one for the computer itself.

You can try 2 things.

If you can boot into safe mode, and run regedit, you may be able to at least clear the bad registry links by searching for rdzre
Then, you need to determine if you should delete the key, or change the key.
If rdzre has associated itself with a number of file extensions, just deleting the keys with rdzre may make matters worse.

Your next option, is to install the hard drive in your other PC, and use a text editor to manually edit the registry files.

Beyond the above, my final suggestion is to back up your data files on your other PC,
format the drive,
start over.

Chas

by computab

Nothing works not even in safemode. I can look in Windows Explorer, but when I try to load any program, I get the same error message window, like the window you got with the Sircam virus. Is it possible to edit the registry on a slave drive?

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