[imspirit]

I just have a question....
If somebody has tampered with your DOS program,
and changed some of the lines in order to cause
your computer to use up all it's memory....
can this be detected? If so, how can it be
found and corrected? I know absolutely nothing
about DOS. I have an HP, 400 MHz, Intel Celeron processor,
am using IE 5.0. The pc is only 1 1/2 years old, and nothing has been added in over 8 months to this. Strange
things are happening, like files are moving at random to the desk top, recycle bin being emptied and then everything coming back up. Weird to me. Can anyone help?

[AcaCandy]

What makes you think this is a dos problem?

You are running windows from the sounds of it?

Virus perhaps?

[imspirit]

The reason that I asked, was because I was told that someone
who house sat for us, would go into DOS and rewrite whatever....which would cause the pc to use up all the memory and nobody could detect it. This person even bragged about doing it later. My pc has not run properly since the housesitter has left.
I went to the McAfee home page and ran a scan on this pc, and it showed no viruses. Is there a better place to go to get a second opinion on scanning for a virus? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm also getting a Fatal
Exception error message. Here it is....
Fatal Exception OE has occurred at 015F:BFF996EF
Does that help you understand any better?

[Dan O]

I assume you are running Windows 98. To check if he is loading things you don't need start Windows 98 and select Start, Run, type: MSCONFIG and click OK. This utility allow you to view everything that is loaded during Windows boot up. Click the Config.sys tab and uncheck all boxes, click the Autexec.bat tab and uncheck all boxes, and click the Starup tab uncheck all boxes except ScanRegistry, SystemTray, and your virus scanner software if you have one. By unchecking a box it turns the statement into a comment, if you find you need it you can recheck it later.

If the Fatal Exception OE error does not go away, it may be because Windows Internet Explorer was upgraded. To uninstall it, select Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, select Internet Explorer, click the Remove button, and then click Restore to previous version.

Good luck and if you have more problems with the Fatal Exception error post your problem in the Windows 95/98/ME forum.