Page 1 of IE down - need help!

Dear All
(Using Win 98, BT Broadband, and IE6)
Last night, while surfing, I got a stream of AVG warnings about Trojan viruses. It did its job, and shut down IE. Soon after, I found an icon in my System Tray which claimed to be "TSA Installer" and remained at 18% complete.
Being unsure of all this, I disconnected my broadband connection, and did a full AVG check. It found 3 viruses, all trojans, in my Temporary Internet files, which it healed.

Since then, I have not been able to open IE. The hourglass appears when I double-click on the IE shortcut, but then disappears. When I do a Ctrl-Alt-Del, it shows several instances of "iexplore" but I cannot see any browsers. Moreover, this TSA Installer is also present, and shown as "not responding". I did a google search but cannot find anything of use.

The broadband connection is fine, MSN Messenger, Outlook Express, and Yahoo Messenger are all functioning normally.

Should I reinstall IE6 from a disk that I have? What do I do about this TSA Installer?

Regards

Tarzan

Do you have an alternate browser? I`m thinking something like firefox which doesn`t have these holes.

Oh bugger, you are in `98. You have a lot less control over what starts up. Just check if there is anywhere that can uninistall it. If not, try reinstalling IE, but really, the safest option would be an alternate browser.

You can still use msconfig in win98, and control everything at startup.

msconfig is your friend. :)

tWeetZ

try commonname for some references to an unwanted item that seems to have tsa associated with it and can be included with kazaa.
Try Windows Process library for lists of valid and invalid processes to check against.
Note msconfig should be in systems tools menu within sysinfo.
The most likely place to find the nasties is in the list of currently running processes though i can`t remember how to find this in 98 since i probably used norton utilities or suchlike

this`ll probably sound stupid, but if your IE is down....which you obviously use for internet...how did you get to post the message above?!?

Or do you have more than one browser installed and prefer to use IE?

Jimbo : oÞ

"Making Teenagers depressed is like shooting fish inna barrel"

Dear All
Thanks for all your suggestions.
(Jimbo, I was typing from a friend`s machine)

In the end, I managed to find the offending files and delete the directories. I tried to re-install IE6, but it kept saying that everything was okay and I did not need to install.

I managed to install Firefox, as suggested by TinnionA - worked like a dream, and even imported all my Favorites. So, I`m up and running again, and it is now my default browser..

IE6 is still not working, and I would like to have it, if only as a backup and the fact that if I click a hyperlink from Outlook Express or MSN Messenger, they seem to try and launch IE.

A dumb question: If I do a full reinstall of IE6, will it overwrite Outlook Express (which works fine)?

Try downloading spybot search and destroy and adaware and check for spyware on your system as the installer sounds spyware related and its a good idea to check for such stuff anyways.
As for outlook express just make a note of the settings and restore them after you reinstall if necessary and save the address book as well
I`m dubious that this will help mind you as theres no guarantee it will wipe the list of add ons associated with IE which is probably where the problem files are hiding and a clean install may be your only hope.
Do you use a firewall ?