Control panel lockout

[RobH]

I was blessed yesterday with a call from a friend who was asking for help with his 98se rig.
Seems he couldnt click the My Computer Icon and get in.
After some investigation,It was not only his My Computer Icon,but the recycle bin,windows explorier(in the programming list),and a right click on the startbutton (exporer option).
After fooling around with it for an hour or so,I saved his important stuff,and reloaded windows for him.
It seems it is working fine now,I dont have an answer for the reason it went belly up like that,I know this fella goes to a lot of "porn" sites,and thought that the downloading of many film clips might have been the problem. I had him run an antivirus program but it showed nothing.
Any ideas,and most of all,was there any other way to have repaired his windows without an fresh install??

[Dan]

if this happens in the future, run a spyware or adware scan with a program like Adaware. those film clips may not have done anything, but the site may have loaded something that did.
also, it's good to empty the cookies and temp internet files when trying to solve a problem like this.
those sites can cause a lot of problems...even popups to some pornsites can load unwanted software. the little "x" that you click to close a window can actually be a command to install a dialer...not to mention the spam they can generate.
tell your friend to go and buy a magazine next time.....