XP - nothing runs

[guy]

I am attepting to fix a friends Dell Laptop which is running Windows XP (not
SP2 AFAIK)
the intial problem is that running any program IE, Notepad, Works etc.
results in the '... has encountered a problem and needs to close' dialogue.
I have tried various things, safe mode etc. with no effect (I can not do
much as nothing runs!) and have now reinstalled XP.

I now get the same dialogue for Apoint.exe on booting up, however attampting
to run any program now simply results in a brief change of the mouse cursor
to an hourglass, for maybe 1 to 2 seconds.

As I can not run ***anything*** I am at a loss as to how to proceed, any
ideas?

Guy

 

[guy]

I am attepting to fix a friends Dell Laptop which is running Windows XP (not
SP2 AFAIK)
the intial problem is that running any program IE, Notepad, Works etc.
results in the '... has encountered a problem and needs to close' dialogue.
I have tried various things, safe mode etc. with no effect (I can not do
much as nothing runs!) and have now reinstalled XP.

I now get the same dialogue for Apoint.exe on booting up, however attampting
to run any program now simply results in a brief change of the mouse cursor
to an hourglass, for maybe 1 to 2 seconds.

As I can not run ***anything*** I am at a loss as to how to proceed, any
ideas?

Guy

Further info, I can run Windows explrer by right clicking on the start
button, but can not use this to run anything else.

Task manager does run via Ctrl Alt Delete and shows th following processes:-
System Idle around 99%
explore.exe intermittently 2%
taskmgr.exe steady at 1%

no other processes running

Guy

 

[John John (MVP)]

:




Further info, I can run Windows explrer by right clicking on the start
button, but can not use this to run anything else.

Task manager does run via Ctrl Alt Delete and shows th following processes:-
System Idle around 99%
explore.exe intermittently 2%
taskmgr.exe steady at 1%

no other processes running

System Idle at 99% is normal, what do you do when you're "idle"? And
what do you do if you are 99% "idle"? System Idle at 99% means that the
System is only spending 1% of its time working.

Having only three processes running is not normal, in reality your
system should not be working at all with only the 3 processes shown
above, several critical system processes are missing from the list.

I suspect that you have viruses or other malware or you have security
software that is overly aggressive and hiding important information from
the Task Manager... or the installation is simply borked! Log on as an
administrator and at the command prompt issue the following commands,
pressing <Enter> after each:

cd\
net start >c:\running.txt
tasklist /svc >>c:\running.txt

Make sure that you use a double redirector (>>) with the Tasklist
command or else it will overwrite the information from the first
command. Now find the file C:\running.txt and post the contents here.
If you are running XP Home the Tasklist command may fail, post the
contents of running.txt anyway.

John

 

[guy]

System Idle at 99% is normal, what do you do when you're "idle"? And
what do you do if you are 99% "idle"? System Idle at 99% means that the
System is only spending 1% of its time working.

Having only three processes running is not normal, in reality your
system should not be working at all with only the 3 processes shown
above, several critical system processes are missing from the list.

I suspect that you have viruses or other malware or you have security
software that is overly aggressive and hiding important information from
the Task Manager... or the installation is simply borked! Log on as an
administrator and at the command prompt issue the following commands,
pressing <Enter> after each:

cd\
net start >c:\running.txt
tasklist /svc >>c:\running.txt

Make sure that you use a double redirector (>>) with the Tasklist
command or else it will overwrite the information from the first
command. Now find the file C:\running.txt and post the contents here.
If you are running XP Home the Tasklist command may fail, post the
contents of running.txt anyway.

John

Thanks John,

I tried this on my own box and got pefectley sensible results, however on
the dead one the command window just opens and then closes immediatlely:-(
also I do not have internet acces on the dead box (IE will not start) so i
would have to re-key all of the text file into my box and send from here.
McAfee Virus scan is running but I dont know how up to date it is.

cheers

Guy

 

[John John (MVP)]

:







Thanks John,

I tried this on my own box and got pefectley sensible results, however on
the dead one the command window just opens and then closes immediatlely:-(
also I do not have internet acces on the dead box (IE will not start) so i
would have to re-key all of the text file into my box and send from here.
McAfee Virus scan is running but I dont know how up to date it is.

The command window opens and closes immediately? You are supposed to
run the commands from an open command window, the command(s) should
either run or it should return an error message, it shouldn't terminate
the command session and close the already open command window. If the
dead box has a floppy send the output of the command to the floppy, or
you might be able to send it to a flash drive. There are critical
system services missing from the process list and if they are indeed not
started it is a miracle that the installation even boots to a desktop!
Do you have a Windows XP CD? You could use the Recovery Console to make
sure that the 6 critical services are enabled, these services are:

- Csrss.exe (Client/Server Runtime Server Subsystem)
- Lsass.exe (Local Security Authority Subsystem Service)
- Smss.exe (Session Manager Subsystem)
- RpcSs (Remote Procedure Call Server Service)*
- Winlogon.exe (Windows logon process)
- services.exe (Windows Service Controller)

* RpcSs is not critical in its own right but hardly anything runs
without it.

If these services were disable or had their start values changed then
some sort of malware is probably at fault. Another explanation might be
that some files are missing or damaged or that the disk is weak or
failing. Running a chkdsk on the disk may help but be warned that there
is always a risk of data loss when chkdsk is run. Of course, you could
always try booting to Safe Mode with Command Prompt and run System
Restore from there and see if you can restore the machine to an earlier
working state.

John

 

[guy]

The command window opens and closes immediately? You are supposed to
run the commands from an open command window, the command(s) should
either run or it should return an error message, it shouldn't terminate
the command session and close the already open command window. If the
dead box has a floppy send the output of the command to the floppy, or
you might be able to send it to a flash drive. There are critical
system services missing from the process list and if they are indeed not
started it is a miracle that the installation even boots to a desktop!
Do you have a Windows XP CD? You could use the Recovery Console to make
sure that the 6 critical services are enabled, these services are:

- Csrss.exe (Client/Server Runtime Server Subsystem)
- Lsass.exe (Local Security Authority Subsystem Service)
- Smss.exe (Session Manager Subsystem)
- RpcSs (Remote Procedure Call Server Service)*
- Winlogon.exe (Windows logon process)
- services.exe (Windows Service Controller)

* RpcSs is not critical in its own right but hardly anything runs
without it.

If these services were disable or had their start values changed then
some sort of malware is probably at fault. Another explanation might be
that some files are missing or damaged or that the disk is weak or
failing. Running a chkdsk on the disk may help but be warned that there
is always a risk of data loss when chkdsk is run. Of course, you could
always try booting to Safe Mode with Command Prompt and run System
Restore from there and see if you can restore the machine to an earlier
working state.

John

I have tried chkdsk - it wont run, just like all the others

As apparently there is no critical data on the box -I think it is just used
for browsing the net, I have gone the whole hog and deleted the partition,
reformatted and am currently reloading Windows. If that does not work I will
fix it with a big hammer!

thanks for you help anyway

cheers

Guy

 

[John John (MVP)]

:




I have tried chkdsk - it wont run, just like all the others

As apparently there is no critical data on the box -I think it is just used
for browsing the net, I have gone the whole hog and deleted the partition,
reformatted and am currently reloading Windows. If that does not work I will
fix it with a big hammer!

thanks for you help anyway

cheers

You're welcome.

John