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Why do I keep getting an error when opening Excel

Posted By : Ezequiel of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on June 10, 2004

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I was "bushwhacked" by a spyware application (Comet Systems/Comet Curser). After considerable effort and with the help of Adaware and Spyobt, I was able to kill both applications, or so I thought. However, my windows registry is now corrupted. When I open either Excel or Word, I get the following message: Visual Basic compile error in hidden module - Autoexecnew. When I click OK, it is followed up by a message: Compile error in hidden module - DISTMON. I can access both Excel and Word. I suspect Comet wormed its way into my Office Suite via the regristry modification to extract private information as I had never had the problem before Norton Personal Firewall alerted me that an outside source was attempting to highjack my browser.

Incidentally, I first tried system restore and it did not work although it had in the past. I then tried windows repair to no avail. I also tried a complete windows reinstallation but it did not correct the problem as I had not deleted all applications from my hard drive. I suspect ther may still be hidden spyware somewhere on my hard drive. I would completely reformat my hard drive if I knew how as I see that as the most viable solution. Unfortunately, I have not found any instructions for hard drive reformatting once Windows XP Home Edition is installed.

This question was answered on June 10, 2004. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.


The reformatting might be unnecessary, the website below will help you take care of the that little bug, it will walk you through clearing up your problem. http://support.microsoft.com/?id=307410

Good Luck! Hope I was helpful.

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Posted by Ezequiel of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on June 10, 2004

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