Bit Defender ate something??

[Teflon]

98SE on an older Thinkpad. Thought it was acting sluggish, ran the CA
AV plus Spybot S&D, but nothing, so I decided to run Bit Defender's
online scan. Somewhere during the scan, a message flashed on the
screen, just got a glimpse of it, said it had found and eliminated a
problem, did not get the name of what it had found or eliminated. Did
not get any report or find any log of the scan's results. It was my
error for not checking to see what the scan would do when it found
something. Should have changed it to stop and ask questions, versus
the default fix on the fly.

Launched an app that has been running for years and got a message that
the Unicows wrapper could not be found. Could not continue loading
the app. Checked, and Unicows is in several folders, including that
apps folder. Just to make sure, I got the Unicode installer and
reinstalled it in all folders, including Windows\System. Still no
luck launching the app.

Reinstalled the app, no difference.

Apparently whatever Bit Defender found and eliminated was crucial to
the app finding unicows.dll.

Any ideas on what was eliminated and how I might go about getting it
back.

Thanks, and I do appologize for using gmail groups, but I'm normally
just a reader, and it's the easiest thing for me to monitor.

[Gary S. Terhune[_2_]]

While I won't comment on how you got yourself into this predicament, I have
to ask what it was that you reinstalled besides the application. Was it
this?

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=73BA7BD7-ED06-4F0D-80A4-2A7EEAEE17E2

(TinyURL = http://tinyurl.com/qynq)

Regardless, what you need to do is restore a Registry from before the
BitDefender incident. And hope all your reainstalling hasn't worsened
matters.

"How to Manually Restore the Windows 98/Me Registry"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221512

"How To Backup, Edit, and Restore the Registry in Windows 95, Windows 98,
and Windows Me"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322754

Of course, this will only work if your Scan Registry startup entry has been
left intact, so that a new backup is created every day at startup (and if
you always leave your system on, you want to schedule "SCANREGW /backup " as
a daily event), and only if it's been less than five days since the
incident. That's as long as Windows keeps the backups.

You should also make a copy of the backup files, because every time you
restore a backup, it creates a new backup (before restoring) and that
replaces the oldest backup in the list. Do that a couple of times and you
have no decent backups left. To backup the files, first use Folder Options
to make sure it says, "Show All Files" on teh View tab. Then use Find>Files
& Folders to search for RB*.CAB files. When they come up, copy them to a new
folder on the Desktop. Note that they'll be useless in a short time, so you
can just get rid of them when you've got things figured out.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com

"Teflon" > wrote in message
...
> 98SE on an older Thinkpad. Thought it was acting sluggish, ran the CA
> AV plus Spybot S&D, but nothing, so I decided to run Bit Defender's
> online scan. Somewhere during the scan, a message flashed on the
> screen, just got a glimpse of it, said it had found and eliminated a
> problem, did not get the name of what it had found or eliminated. Did
> not get any report or find any log of the scan's results. It was my
> error for not checking to see what the scan would do when it found
> something. Should have changed it to stop and ask questions, versus
> the default fix on the fly.
>
> Launched an app that has been running for years and got a message that
> the Unicows wrapper could not be found. Could not continue loading
> the app. Checked, and Unicows is in several folders, including that
> apps folder. Just to make sure, I got the Unicode installer and
> reinstalled it in all folders, including Windows\System. Still no
> luck launching the app.
>
> Reinstalled the app, no difference.
>
> Apparently whatever Bit Defender found and eliminated was crucial to
> the app finding unicows.dll.
>
> Any ideas on what was eliminated and how I might go about getting it
> back.
>
> Thanks, and I do appologize for using gmail groups, but I'm normally
> just a reader, and it's the easiest thing for me to monitor.
>

[Gary S. Terhune[_2_]]

FYI, after you install teh Active-X and you get presented with the Start
Scan button, this is what's in the box, right above the button:

"Scanning Options"

"Select what you want to check for viruses.
"By default, your entire computer will be checked for viruses and other
threats. To scan just some of your folders, click here.
"Settings:
"By default, BitDefender will try to clean the infected files it finds.
"Warning If the disinfection fails, the infected files will be deleted
without prompt. To change this and other settings, click here. Please use
these options with care." (And, of course, there are a cople of links to go
along with the "Click here" text.)

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com

"Teflon" > wrote in message
...
> 98SE on an older Thinkpad. Thought it was acting sluggish, ran the CA
> AV plus Spybot S&D, but nothing, so I decided to run Bit Defender's
> online scan. Somewhere during the scan, a message flashed on the
> screen, just got a glimpse of it, said it had found and eliminated a
> problem, did not get the name of what it had found or eliminated. Did
> not get any report or find any log of the scan's results. It was my
> error for not checking to see what the scan would do when it found
> something. Should have changed it to stop and ask questions, versus
> the default fix on the fly.
>
> Launched an app that has been running for years and got a message that
> the Unicows wrapper could not be found. Could not continue loading
> the app. Checked, and Unicows is in several folders, including that
> apps folder. Just to make sure, I got the Unicode installer and
> reinstalled it in all folders, including Windows\System. Still no
> luck launching the app.
>
> Reinstalled the app, no difference.
>
> Apparently whatever Bit Defender found and eliminated was crucial to
> the app finding unicows.dll.
>
> Any ideas on what was eliminated and how I might go about getting it
> back.
>
> Thanks, and I do appologize for using gmail groups, but I'm normally
> just a reader, and it's the easiest thing for me to monitor.
>

[Gary S. Terhune[_2_]]

PS -- Vague sentences like "I launched an app that has been running for
years..." aren't particularly helpful. The NAME of the app (and version,
etc.), is what's helpful in researching and diagnosing any issues.

And I know I originally said I wouldn't comment on how you got into the
predicament, I just can't help it. For the sake of others who read this
thread, I have to point out all the places you should have made different
choices. Just to rub it in a little more, BitDefender does offer the
opportunity to save a report when it's finished. First, it asks you to send
the report to BitDefender for analysis. In that dialogue, there's a link
that says, "Click here to view the report", and it provides a nice,
plain-text HTML file suitable for saving as TXT.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com

"Teflon" > wrote in message
...
> 98SE on an older Thinkpad. Thought it was acting sluggish, ran the CA
> AV plus Spybot S&D, but nothing, so I decided to run Bit Defender's
> online scan. Somewhere during the scan, a message flashed on the
> screen, just got a glimpse of it, said it had found and eliminated a
> problem, did not get the name of what it had found or eliminated. Did
> not get any report or find any log of the scan's results. It was my
> error for not checking to see what the scan would do when it found
> something. Should have changed it to stop and ask questions, versus
> the default fix on the fly.
>
> Launched an app that has been running for years and got a message that
> the Unicows wrapper could not be found. Could not continue loading
> the app. Checked, and Unicows is in several folders, including that
> apps folder. Just to make sure, I got the Unicode installer and
> reinstalled it in all folders, including Windows\System. Still no
> luck launching the app.
>
> Reinstalled the app, no difference.
>
> Apparently whatever Bit Defender found and eliminated was crucial to
> the app finding unicows.dll.
>
> Any ideas on what was eliminated and how I might go about getting it
> back.
>
> Thanks, and I do appologize for using gmail groups, but I'm normally
> just a reader, and it's the easiest thing for me to monitor.
>

[Teflon]

On Aug 5, 11:31*pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote:
> PS -- Vague sentences like "I launched an app that has been running for
> years..." aren't particularly helpful. The NAME of the app (and version,
> etc.), is what's helpful in researching and diagnosing any issues.
>
> And I know I originally said I wouldn't comment on how you got into the
> predicament, I just can't help it. For the sake of others who read this
> thread, I have to point out all the places you should have made different
> choices. Just to rub it in a little more, BitDefender does offer the
> opportunity to save a report when it's finished. First, it asks you to send
> the report to BitDefender for analysis. In that dialogue, there's a link
> that says, "Click here to view the report", and it provides a nice,
> plain-text HTML file suitable for saving as TXT.
>
> --
> Gary S. Terhune
> MS-MVP Shell/Userhttp://grystmill.com

Mr. Terhune - Sir:

First, thank you for risking a spammer attack by coming to the aid of
Google Grouper. (I never did understand what that risk was all
about.)

Second, you are so right, as always. I stand (sit, actually)
chastised. I erroneously put my trust in the wrong place. 50 lashes
with an old MSDOS floppy for me

Now, for the 'grasping-at-straws' questions:

Is there any place I can find where Bit Defender might have stored the
contents of that report on this computer?

I see in IE Tools that the controls are still installed, i.e. Tools -
Uninstall BitDefender Online Scanner v8.

If I ran the online scan again, is it possible the report produced by
this new scan would be an addendum to the report from that old scan?

As to the registry, that backup option is long gone. Ran into some
pesky HDD issues that required multiple restarts, and therefore, well,
you know.

May not mean anything, but I tried to re-register unicows.dll, and got
the message that the DLL Register Server entry point was not found.
Was told to use PView to detect and remove a possibly corrupted DLL
RS. PView??

BTW, the app is VLC media player 0.8.5

Fortunately, this is not a mission-critical machine, kind of like the
old cars I restore are not trip-critical. More of a continuing-
education learning-experience, and for me, the best learning-
experiences are generally the result of my doing something wrong.
Since I like to keep old things running, I have had a lot of those
learning-experiences in the past 70 years.

Thanks for helping.

[Teflon]

On Aug 5, 11:31*pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote:
> PS -- Vague sentences like "I launched an app that has been running for
> years..." aren't particularly helpful. The NAME of the app (and version,
> etc.), is what's helpful in researching and diagnosing any issues.
>
> And I know I originally said I wouldn't comment on how you got into the
> predicament, I just can't help it. For the sake of others who read this
> thread, I have to point out all the places you should have made different
> choices. Just to rub it in a little more, BitDefender does offer the
> opportunity to save a report when it's finished. First, it asks you to send
> the report to BitDefender for analysis. In that dialogue, there's a link
> that says, "Click here to view the report", and it provides a nice,
> plain-text HTML file suitable for saving as TXT.
>
> --
> Gary S. Terhune
> MS-MVP Shell/Userhttp://grystmill.com

(My Columbo bit)

One other comment and question. I noticed in one of the forums that
there was a discussion about BitDefender's propensity for false
detection and auto-eliminating healty code. I did not see unicows.dll
in the discussion.

My question, are there known pieces of healthy legitimate code that
BitDefender falsly identifies as a rat?

Thanks

[glee]

Is this the Unicode installer you used?
Microsoft Layer for Unicode on Windows 95, 98, and Me Systems, 1.1.3790.0
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=73BA7BD7-ED06-4F0D-80A4-2A7EEAEE17E2&displaylang=en

If not, remove your previous attempts at installing Unicode support, then use the
installer from the link above.

You stated you reinstalled VLC media player with no change. Did you first uninstall
it via Add/Remove Programs, then install it clean?
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Windows, A+
http://dts-l.net/
http://dts-l.net/goodpost.htm


"Teflon" > wrote in message
...
On Aug 5, 11:31 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote:
> PS -- Vague sentences like "I launched an app that has been running for
> years..." aren't particularly helpful. The NAME of the app (and version,
> etc.), is what's helpful in researching and diagnosing any issues.
>
> And I know I originally said I wouldn't comment on how you got into the
> predicament, I just can't help it. For the sake of others who read this
> thread, I have to point out all the places you should have made different
> choices. Just to rub it in a little more, BitDefender does offer the
> opportunity to save a report when it's finished. First, it asks you to send
> the report to BitDefender for analysis. In that dialogue, there's a link
> that says, "Click here to view the report", and it provides a nice,
> plain-text HTML file suitable for saving as TXT.
>

Mr. Terhune - Sir:

First, thank you for risking a spammer attack by coming to the aid of
Google Grouper. (I never did understand what that risk was all
about.)

Second, you are so right, as always. I stand (sit, actually)
chastised. I erroneously put my trust in the wrong place. 50 lashes
with an old MSDOS floppy for me

Now, for the 'grasping-at-straws' questions:

Is there any place I can find where Bit Defender might have stored the
contents of that report on this computer?

I see in IE Tools that the controls are still installed, i.e. Tools -
Uninstall BitDefender Online Scanner v8.

If I ran the online scan again, is it possible the report produced by
this new scan would be an addendum to the report from that old scan?

As to the registry, that backup option is long gone. Ran into some
pesky HDD issues that required multiple restarts, and therefore, well,
you know.

May not mean anything, but I tried to re-register unicows.dll, and got
the message that the DLL Register Server entry point was not found.
Was told to use PView to detect and remove a possibly corrupted DLL
RS. PView??

BTW, the app is VLC media player 0.8.5

Fortunately, this is not a mission-critical machine, kind of like the
old cars I restore are not trip-critical. More of a continuing-
education learning-experience, and for me, the best learning-
experiences are generally the result of my doing something wrong.
Since I like to keep old things running, I have had a lot of those
learning-experiences in the past 70 years.

Thanks for helping.

[Gary S. Terhune[_2_]]

"Teflon" > wrote in message
...
On Aug 5, 11:31 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote:
> PS -- Vague sentences like "I launched an app that has been running for
> years..." aren't particularly helpful. The NAME of the app (and version,
> etc.), is what's helpful in researching and diagnosing any issues.
>
> And I know I originally said I wouldn't comment on how you got into the
> predicament, I just can't help it. For the sake of others who read this
> thread, I have to point out all the places you should have made different
> choices. Just to rub it in a little more, BitDefender does offer the
> opportunity to save a report when it's finished. First, it asks you to
> send
> the report to BitDefender for analysis. In that dialogue, there's a link
> that says, "Click here to view the report", and it provides a nice,
> plain-text HTML file suitable for saving as TXT.
>
> --
> Gary S. Terhune
> MS-MVP Shell/Userhttp://grystmill.com

Mr. Terhune - Sir:

First, thank you for risking a spammer attack by coming to the aid of
Google Grouper. (I never did understand what that risk was all
about.)

*** SPAM is undesired advertising material (or malware disguied as such.) I
don't know of any connection between Google Groups and SPAM other than the
fact that if YOU use your real email address in newsgroups, no matter how
you get to the groups, you WILL end up on SPAMMER mailing lists. I use a
fake address. No SPAM for me (other than the usual.) Since yuo, too, are
using a fake address, three is no SPAM involved.

*** Frankly, of all the online interfaces with MS newsgroups, Microsoft's
own interface is the worst and Googles is possibly the best -- EXCEPT that
when I reply to you, your message doesn't get "indented" with marks like >
or |, etc., which makes replying to you "inline", as I'm doing now, tedious.
Thta's why I put the *** in front of my paragraphs (though I suppose I
should be putting them in front of your paragraphs, instead.) Anyway, I
don't know who it is that complains about your using Google Groups, but
they're just being rude.

Second, you are so right, as always. I stand (sit, actually)
chastised. I erroneously put my trust in the wrong place. 50 lashes
with an old MSDOS floppy for me

*** It happens to all of us, at one time or another. That's how I end up
having to uninstall Google Toolbar every few months.

Now, for the 'grasping-at-straws' questions:

Is there any place I can find where Bit Defender might have stored the
contents of that report on this computer?

*** No, because it didn't.

I see in IE Tools that the controls are still installed, i.e. Tools -
Uninstall BitDefender Online Scanner v8.

***Irrelevant

If I ran the online scan again, is it possible the report produced by
this new scan would be an addendum to the report from that old scan?

***No. The report is generated on the fly by the app. It's just in memory
until you save it. You didn't save it.

As to the registry, that backup option is long gone. Ran into some
pesky HDD issues that required multiple restarts, and therefore, well,
you know.

***No, I don't. It doesn't matter how many times you restart, it matters haw
many DAYS since the incident, presuming Scan Registry is in your startup
queue and functioning. When that runs at startup, it checks the Registry's
integrity and then IF (and ONLY IF) no backup exists for "Today", it makes a
new one. If a backup dated "Today" already exists, then it skips making a
new one. Look for your RB*.CAB files and see if you can find them. Also, run
MSCONFIG, click on the Startup tab and uncheck Scan Registry until the issue
is cleared.

May not mean anything, but I tried to re-register unicows.dll, and got
the message that the DLL Register Server entry point was not found.
Was told to use PView to detect and remove a possibly corrupted DLL
RS. PView??

**Process Viewer(?) http://tinyurl.com/6k2frw
Or, possibly, Process Explorer:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

***I don't know anything about it. Don't even know why you installed Unicows
in the first place or how Unicows works..

BTW, the app is VLC media player 0.8.5

*** That app is so old, it isn't even version 1 yet. Besides, there's
nothing it can play that other players can't. In fact, I'm surprised it can
play much of anything modern at all.

Fortunately, this is not a mission-critical machine, kind of like the
old cars I restore are not trip-critical. More of a continuing-
education learning-experience, and for me, the best learning-
experiences are generally the result of my doing something wrong.
Since I like to keep old things running, I have had a lot of those
learning-experiences in the past 70 years.

***Me too. Best way to learn, even if it DOES drive everyone else batty.
Look for those RB*** backup files and see if there's a date that will work.

Thanks for helping.

***You're welcome, and good luck figuring this out.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com

[Gary S. Terhune[_2_]]

I don't know anything more about BD than I learned last night when I was
playing with it to find the info I provided to you. But I'm going to be
recommending that people DON'T use it in the future. Those are not the right
default options to have, and there's no way to save the preferences. Just
canceling and restarting the scan reverts options to defaults. I missed that
and lost a few viruses I'd been hanging onto for study (you know, someday
when I get the time...)

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com

"Teflon" > wrote in message
...
On Aug 5, 11:31 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote:
> PS -- Vague sentences like "I launched an app that has been running for
> years..." aren't particularly helpful. The NAME of the app (and version,
> etc.), is what's helpful in researching and diagnosing any issues.
>
> And I know I originally said I wouldn't comment on how you got into the
> predicament, I just can't help it. For the sake of others who read this
> thread, I have to point out all the places you should have made different
> choices. Just to rub it in a little more, BitDefender does offer the
> opportunity to save a report when it's finished. First, it asks you to
> send
> the report to BitDefender for analysis. In that dialogue, there's a link
> that says, "Click here to view the report", and it provides a nice,
> plain-text HTML file suitable for saving as TXT.
>
> --
> Gary S. Terhune
> MS-MVP Shell/Userhttp://grystmill.com

(My Columbo bit)

One other comment and question. I noticed in one of the forums that
there was a discussion about BitDefender's propensity for false
detection and auto-eliminating healty code. I did not see unicows.dll
in the discussion.

My question, are there known pieces of healthy legitimate code that
BitDefender falsly identifies as a rat?

Thanks

[Franc Zabkar]

On Wed, 6 Aug 2008 12:14:23 -0700, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> put finger
to keyboard and composed:

>I missed that
>and lost a few viruses I'd been hanging onto for study (you know, someday
>when I get the time...)

I can send you some of mine ...

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

[Gary S. Terhune[_2_]]

Let's see... I collected that particular one (Joke....sumthinorother )
approx. eight years ago and haven't glanced at it since. (No, I don't
*think* it's the hoax version.) In fact, it was found buried in a few
email's I'd extracted from a client's trashed machine using one or the other
of Steve's DBX tools. Been a while since I messed with viruses anyway. About
the time XP came out, with all the learning that that entailed, I also went
to work (for my self, or rather for my wife) doing computer graphics. I
simply let that playing with viruses hobby slip way down toward the bottom
of the list.

If I get desperate, I have others packed away here somewhere. Soon as I saw
those lines in the report, I killed the scan. And those DBX files weren't
supposed to be on that partition, anyway, but I've been jockeying stuff in
order to make room to image an external drive that's failing before I can't
recover anything else (I've got most of it already, but CHKDSK managed to
get hold of it when I wasn't looking and scrambled the rest.) Couldn't quite
swing that and ended up just getting a 500GB drive to add to the machine. My
next project to get to when the stuff finally stop hitting the fan, which,
the way it's looking, might not be for *months.*

But thanks, anyway!
--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com

"Franc Zabkar" > wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 6 Aug 2008 12:14:23 -0700, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> put finger
> to keyboard and composed:
>
>>I missed that
>>and lost a few viruses I'd been hanging onto for study (you know, someday
>>when I get the time...)
>
> I can send you some of mine ...
>
> - Franc Zabkar
> --
> Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

[Teflon]

On Aug 6, 12:14*pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote:
> I don't know anything more about BD than I learned last night when I was
> playing with it to find the info I provided to you. But I'm going to be
> recommending that people DON'T use it in the future. Those are not the right
> default options to have, and there's no way to save the preferences. Just
> canceling and restarting the scan reverts options to defaults. I missed that
> and lost a few viruses I'd been hanging onto for study (you know, someday
> when I get the time...)
>
> --
> Gary S. Terhune
> MS-MVP Shell/Userhttp://grystmill.com


Gary - while trying not to smile at your misfortune, I am truly
pleased to know that even a pro, such as yourself, can innocently fall
victim to the stupidity of the BitDefender folks. That 'automatically
delete' default setting for an online scan is at best stupid and could
even be libelous. What are they thinking?

I did contact the BD Support Team and was told I would probably have
to reinstall 98SE, but no apologies. I replied with a clean but
strong indication of my contempt for their inconsiderate stupidity.
There should be a place where a warning to all who would venture to
that site, to be forewarned of the default booby-trap.

I did find a Windows folder, Bdoscan8, that had some BD files,
including a blank history of the 6/4/08 scan, so it did not tell me
what I needed to know about what had been deleted.

Interestingly, I went back to the website to initiate another scan, in
the hopes that it would somehow append the results to the old report,
and when I went to change the scan settings, I found the default was
already set to RECORD ONLY. Now I don't know if the BD folks changed
their default settings, OR, it those settings were recalled from the
BD history stored on my machine, which if the latter is the case, then
this old man was more cautious then he can remember, which is odd.

I ran the scan, got a clean bill of health, no pop-ups and a report
(but no append), which confirmed the clean bill of health. Wish that
had happened the first time.

Anyway, after I try your registry recovery recommendations, a new
learning experience for me, which I have my doubts of its success, I
will probably have to do a reinstall of 98SE. Darn, just when I got
all the stuff working, like the Display Adapter, which gave me fits.
Had 98FE previously. Could hardly read that fuzzy screen.

I appreciate your explanations and clarifications of stuff. I had
always thought 98 created a registry backup on every restart, and then
kept only the most recent five, tho I've never had a need to check
that out.

Ah well, back to the trenches. Thanks again, and to the others who
responded. Will let you all know what did, or didn't, work for me.

[Gary S. Terhune[_2_]]

Good luck, wherever your journey takes you.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com

"Teflon" > wrote in message
...
On Aug 6, 12:14 pm, "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote:
> I don't know anything more about BD than I learned last night when I was
> playing with it to find the info I provided to you. But I'm going to be
> recommending that people DON'T use it in the future. Those are not the
> right
> default options to have, and there's no way to save the preferences. Just
> canceling and restarting the scan reverts options to defaults. I missed
> that
> and lost a few viruses I'd been hanging onto for study (you know, someday
> when I get the time...)
>
> --
> Gary S. Terhune
> MS-MVP Shell/Userhttp://grystmill.com


Gary - while trying not to smile at your misfortune, I am truly
pleased to know that even a pro, such as yourself, can innocently fall
victim to the stupidity of the BitDefender folks. That 'automatically
delete' default setting for an online scan is at best stupid and could
even be libelous. What are they thinking?

I did contact the BD Support Team and was told I would probably have
to reinstall 98SE, but no apologies. I replied with a clean but
strong indication of my contempt for their inconsiderate stupidity.
There should be a place where a warning to all who would venture to
that site, to be forewarned of the default booby-trap.

I did find a Windows folder, Bdoscan8, that had some BD files,
including a blank history of the 6/4/08 scan, so it did not tell me
what I needed to know about what had been deleted.

Interestingly, I went back to the website to initiate another scan, in
the hopes that it would somehow append the results to the old report,
and when I went to change the scan settings, I found the default was
already set to RECORD ONLY. Now I don't know if the BD folks changed
their default settings, OR, it those settings were recalled from the
BD history stored on my machine, which if the latter is the case, then
this old man was more cautious then he can remember, which is odd.

I ran the scan, got a clean bill of health, no pop-ups and a report
(but no append), which confirmed the clean bill of health. Wish that
had happened the first time.

Anyway, after I try your registry recovery recommendations, a new
learning experience for me, which I have my doubts of its success, I
will probably have to do a reinstall of 98SE. Darn, just when I got
all the stuff working, like the Display Adapter, which gave me fits.
Had 98FE previously. Could hardly read that fuzzy screen.

I appreciate your explanations and clarifications of stuff. I had
always thought 98 created a registry backup on every restart, and then
kept only the most recent five, tho I've never had a need to check
that out.

Ah well, back to the trenches. Thanks again, and to the others who
responded. Will let you all know what did, or didn't, work for me.