DISASTER! Long sad tale of a moron.

[Guest]

Please help, I'm a moron in a panic.

Recently my Windows (xphome) began to slow down, so I ran a virus check
(avast anti-virus), an adware check (Adaware and Spybot S&D) and finally
Windows Defender. A few cookies and a couple of broswer add ons were removed,
but only defender found something 'critical' called C2.lop. When I clicked on
the remove button defender said it could complete the task.

The slow-down wasn't solved and it was so bad it made Photoshop unusable (I
earn my living using it). I went through various troubleshooting guides (by
Dell who made the system), no joy there either.

I tried to Restore, but the system crashed during restore and when I started
Windows again all my restore points were gone.

The final piece of advice (from Dells trouble-shooter site) I got was to
Repair Windows, so I did that, carefully following the instructions to the
letter.

During setup Windows reported several files missing or corrupt, but Windows
started and the problem seemed to be fixed.

I could get online, Photshop worked perfectly, everything seemed good,
except that Outlook Express would not start. Not too bad I thought I can live
with that for now.

So I thought it would be a good time to make a restore point, when I did try
that I got a message saying a restore point could not be made. restart
Windows and try again.

So I did as I was instructed (I'm a moron, remember?) and Windows froze on
startup, it got to the Windows is Starting screen and hung.

I tried restarting in safe mode (not that I would know what to do there),
but the same thing happened, just before the password screen Windows hung.

I repaired it again and now here I am, XP running, but I'm afraid to shut
down my system.

 

[Guest]

I'm not sure this is helpful, but from one moron to another I just have to
say that if I was in your situation, I would back up everything of importance
and totally reinstall windows with a full harddrive format. Now I may be
barking up the wrong tree, but I assume you are using a legal copy of XP home
and suspect that you may not be maintaining your harddrive (cleanup, defrag
etc) with commited regularity, which is an alternative way to keep your
computer running at a decent speed, using programs like defender is better
used as a complimentary tool, if I am wrong I apologise and concede to
someone with more expertise than me... Hope this is helpful.

 

[FrankV]

Run "sfc scannow" and lot windows check all the system files. It may ask
for your windows cd.

Frank

 

[Guest]

Yes this is a legal copy of XP. I have defraged my disk and run a disk error
check and even run Dells own hardware and drivers diagnostic program, all
report back that everthing is fine.

As for completely reinstalling, would that be diferrent from using Windows
repair (from disk)?

 

[Guest]

If windows could fix the problem, wouldn't it have done so when I ran Windows
repair? Does this sfc scannow work differently that that program?

Excuse me for the extra questions, but I'm feeling very cautious right now.

 

[DatabaseBen]

photoshop is a "big" consumer of memory but an excellent product. In order
for it to be happy
it needs at least 512 of ram. And if there is a hardware conflict with
scanners or printers, it will stall when loading and stall your system
too.

Then it requires lots of scratch disk space as well
and it also prefers that the space be located in a different partition.

Then who know what else photoshop has done for you and overlooked.
Did you remove any autoupdater and autoregistering startups?
Have you cleaned you hd since it is likely there are tons of
scratch files and likely of large sizes?
If you are running it in low memory, it is likely that it is
running away and making errors like opening a 25k image at
a high resolution of 25 megs...

It may be likely you need to set up a seperate hardware profile just
for your photoshop and your living...

(didn't you already posted this
problem before...)

 

[Guest]

I've been using Photoshop on this system for over a year now with 512 ram, no
problem. I've defragged the drive and error-checked it.

The slow-down itself has been fixed, now with this 'repaired' XP it hangs at
startup.

Could updates to windows (they are automatic) have changed files that
something is looking for and this repair has put windows back with the older
files?

 

[DatabaseBen]

download a program called "autoruns" from sysinternals.com
it will sort out those tricky auto running processess and allow
you to disable them in the registry.

in autoruns take note of the tabs, as they help sort out
the processes. when you find a process that should not
be there or don't need, uncheck it then double click the
filename. your registry will open up and verify
they are disabled. the reverse is true to re enable them by re checking
the line items again.

its handy and helpful.

also, don't forget to make a restore point before altering your registry -
having a little insurance won't hurt