Unable to read registry, 98SE, VirusScan?

[SkaarjMaster]

6-20-04: I decided to update virusscan dat files, windows update, spywareblaster, spybot and ad-aware the 98SE computer while doing something else on my XP computer and uuuuuuuuum got an "Unable to read from registry" error while trying to update VirusScan dat files on my Win98SE computer. Now none of the VirusScan stuff will run. Everytime I try to run it and just before booting into Windows it has this error for the Agsynmanager file (forgot exact name of file) or any other virusscan file I try to run. I tried reinstalling McAfee VirusScan 5.16, registry checker, copying the files from the rb001.cab over the ones on my computer, uninstalling, deleting some Mcafee entries in the registry then reinstalling and none of them worked.

I did get this nice error when trying to access the vshini.vxd file in the dos portion of the bootup though. I got rid of this by finding the file on the install disc and renaming it to the correct name and putting it where it should be just to get rid of this bootup error and it stopped the bootup error.

Anyway, I'm going to try and search for "mcafee", "virusscan" and "network associates" in the registry and delete all the entries that I think need to go (non-Favorites, non-Start menu, etc. entries) and try to reinstall VirusScan again and see what happens. If it still doesn't install, then I'll just use AVG Anti-Virus until I figure something else out. Any other ideas? ...besides format c: and reinstall any version of windows or linux that is...

6-21-04: I heard this weekend that maybe McAfee put something in the boot sector and this may be why I can't reinstall.

6-22-04: I deleted all appropriate entries in the registry for mcafee, network associates and virusscan. Then, did a reboot, scandisk, defrag, reboot and finally reinstalled VirusScan 5.16 and upgraded the dat file to second latest as the xx67 file caused the problem originally and I'd rather not have any chance of doing it again (of course, it may not be the file, but why take a chance, hehe). Everything seems to work again! Although, I got that missing vshinit.vxd file error on bootup again. I just copied it to the C:\Windows\System directory again and now it's fine!

7-16-04: Well, it happened again with the latest .dat file from Mcafee. Luckily, I was smart this time and did a DriveCopy just before trying to update the .dat files. Anyone know WTF is going on? Why do I now get a Asynmanager(???) error everytime Mcafee 5.16 tries to startup on my 98SE system? Is my subscription out-of-date and this is their f-ed up way of telling me? If this problem can't be solved, then I'm switching to Kaspersky on my 98SE system! Thank you.