Win98 machine shows 50 missing shortcuts on reboot

[DrDave1958]

I'm working on a guys machine running Win98 which had 4 trojans, and about 25 spywares, all of which I deleted. But the original problem is still there and I don't have a clue what is causing it.
When you first boot up and you get to the desktop, one at a time you get the windows error message "Missing Shorcut" about 50 times in a row. The names of the files are all different (they are obviously morphed file names like talf50qiu.exe). They all end in .exe. I know some program is creating them at startup because it also creates a shortcut for most of them and places it in the Startup folder, and it will creat 1 or 2 executables in the c:\windows folder as well. I've removed several registry entries related to the trojans but I can't stop these files from being created. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks, Dave

[paul9]

empty out C:\windows\temp and make sure you run an updated antivirus and antitrojan program. http://www.moosoft.com/products/cleaner/ should kill more trojans than just an antivirus.

[no1_vern]

DrDave1958,
If you have the original cd install disk(or even another OS entirely), I suggest it would be shorter/more efficient to format your drive and re-install win98.
Formating is practically the only way to ensure you wont re-infect the computer when you reboot.
Don't hook the system up to your network nor the internet until you are sure it has been cleaned.

[paul9]

do your work in safe mode and check into msconfig.exe, and bear in mind what vern says about a reinstall.

[DrDave1958]

Thanks for the Cleaner link Paul, it found another trojan my Antivirus missed. Also thanks for the reminder about MsConfig (that did the trick). I always forget about that.

Thanks,
-Dave-