Explorer.exe slows/freezes my pc experience!

[Nijmegen]

I have Windows XP SP2; 512 MB RAM; 40GB Harddisc space (maximum; about 12 GB
left) and 1,0 Ghz CPU.

Last month I had discovered that I had about 16 viruses and trojans on my pc
when I had them removed with Adaware (The updated Mcafee VirusScan did
NOTHING!) and used a "registry cleaner" too. (I made no backup, to save some
of my 40GB diskspace)
But now sometimes when I reboot, explorer.exe will fail to initiate (with an
error message) and when it does, it slows my pc after some minutes.

Examples: when I am surfing the net (or moving through my folders and files)
a website (or folder or file) will take 1 minute to load or would freeze. But
when I use taskmanager to shut down "explorer.exe." the surfing speeds up.
And when I restart explorer.exe I can once again move through my folders and
files again...but only for about 15-20 minutes. Because it will freeze again!

When I look in taskmanger I see that explorer.exe is adding 4 kb of RAM
every second, yet the entire windows explorer is frozen. (no way to go to my
documents or even activate the "start" button! Unless if I shut down
explorer.exe then resatrt it...)

Is there a way to fix this...or is my RAM and Processor Power too low for
today's standards??? Or has the virus/trojans/malware done something? (or
Adaware and the registry cleaner)

 

[Nijmegen]

I even found myself surfing the net or reading my e-mails with Explorer.EXE
switched OFF! This way these applications won't freeze because of the
RAM-consuming "Explorer.exe"...

It freezes at 15.000KB or at 32.000Kb, but keeps adding 4Kb per sec...

 

[Gerry]

Nijmegen

An anti-virus programme deals with viruses. Anti-spyware software deals
with malware (spyware). Removing malware can be problematic if you get
certain Trojans installed. They invite their friends and no single
anti-spyware programme is capable of detecting all guests.

Try another scan with Spybot S & D
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html

Take care you get the freeware version.

You may have irretrievably damaged you software using a "registry
cleaner". Let's hope not.
http://aumha.net:80/viewtopic.php?t=28099

You need to look more carefuly at your suspect explorer.exe. Explorer is
used by other applications and it could be the other application that is
causing the problem. You can do this using Process Explorer.

CPU usage relating explorer.exe in Task Manager may relate to a
subsidiary process where explorer.exe is acting as the parent. Thus in
Process Explorer you can see Process Explorer and Teatimer showing CPU
usage which then got repeated in explorer.exe. However, explorer.exe
acts as parent for any number of processes and you may need to dig
deeper to find the cause of the CPU usage.

For further information about Process Explorer see here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/SystemInformation/ProcessExplorer.mspx

A new addition to Process Explorer is that you can now right click on a
process and search Online for relevant information.

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Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
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