Help with Code 4 Error

This is a thank you for the help I got from reading your forums. I have an issue that I was able to clear up and thought perhaps others could benefit from my experiences, so I wanted to post this.

For reference, I have an older PC (it was a gift from a friend) and it runs Windows 98. I use Symantec Anti-Virus, SpyBot, Ad-Aware and the Google pop-up blocker to help keep my system clean. I run all these weekly and update very often. My prevention tactics had been working until Sunday, Sept. 25th, when I got hit by an attack which caused a bunch of problems for my system and disabled many of my spyware prevention programs.

One of the things that happened was program called "Iexplore" was being loaded on start-up and running in the background. Another thing I found was a batch of files for CoolWWWSearch.

I was running SpyBlaster on my system for several months before the attack and it seemed to be helping. The previous version of SpyBlaster I had would not run anymore and I assumed it had been compromised by the attack. I got a Code 4 Error when I tried to run it. As a part of the clean-up, I downloaded the new 3.4 version and attempted to run it. I got a code 4 Error again. I thought I'd cleared up all the problems on the machine, but since SpyBlaster still would not run, I kept looking.

I read all the posts on this web site on the Code 4 Error, which reads -
"Error while unpacking program, code 4. Please report to author."
looking for clues why SpyBlaster 3.4 would not run.

I looked everywhere the posts suggested. I appreciate all of the ideas but I could not locate the trouble files. Finally, I found I had three old files from a previous computer user that seemed to be causing the trouble. These files look to have been put onto the machine in 1998 along with some type of system upgrade. There were 34 files that were put on the machine at the same time, and the other files seem valid.

The bad files were named dmbmp.exe, yaemu.exe, and dmhfj.exe. They were located in the Windows\System folder. I couldn't find these files on another Windows 98 machine. Nor could I find any references to them in google or altavista searches. I put these files out to a file on my desktop and my system seems to be running fine without them. Since removing them from the System folder, Spyblaster runs just fine!

It seems like these files were "sleeping" on my system and I hit something that woke them up. I can't really explain why they woke up but they weren't causing any problems before, but removing them has cleared up a lot. My machine even seems to be running faster now that they are gone.

P.S. - Somehow these files had also affected my SpyBot. When I ran SpyBot, it told me to Please Immunize. When I tried to manually do an "Immunize," I got a Code 4 error from SpyBot too. After removal of these 3 files, SpyBot shows the Immunize is working and says all known bad products blocked.

I saw many people had been unable to eliminate the Code 4 error and I thought perhaps these files might be the culprite. Thanks again.