weird connection problem in 98se

[DocClock aka MadClocker]

Lately I have been going thru my usual motions to get my e-mail, (I use OE) and I click on the OE shortcut on the taskbar, and the dialup connection dialogue comes up, but OE never does...I can click on any outlook shortcut and I get nothing.....another quirk is that sometimes IE will come up, but will be totaly blank e.g. no buttons at the top, and I usualy get a DNS error when this happens, and the only thing I can do is reboot to connect.
This has only just started within the last two weeks or so.
I scanned the registry and found no errors, ran add-aware and found no spyware, ran norton found no viri....but recently (after all this started) I was surfing, and had several pages open, and Norton said some script was trying to do whatever (forgot the script name) and I chose to delete, and Norton said it could not delete, so I chose to repair the infected file, and again norton said it could not do that either, so as a last resort, I chose to quarentine, and norton said it could not do that either.....each time I tried something, the choices diminished...and was finally left with ignore, and I emediately disconnected and did a full system scan, and still found nothing.
I keep up with my virus protection religously, and my virus files are up to date.
has anybody run into this problem b4? I'm running 98se, and up till now it has been stable as a rock.....but I have been running 98se for longer than most people own their comps, and am wondering if my install is going to pot, or do I have a trojan/virus?
I've never had to reboot till the last few weeks, and now I'm having to reboot every time I want to connect. Very strange

[AZN]

windows does funny things sometimes. Have u tried reinstalling OE? I seen some virus do funny things to computers and ur symptoms sounds like a virus. even thou norton doesnt see it, u may be infected.

AZN

[bdf24]

have you tried deletin the file from a dos prompt? I've had files I couldn't delete within window's. Would say it's being used by another program or window's. But there was never any app's or processes that pertained to it. Even tryed in safe mode and still no go. But going to a comand prompt allowed me to delete the file. It's worth a shot.

[DocClock aka MadClocker]

I don't know what the file was...it was a script though..and I didn't think quickly enough to write the name down b4 taking any action