M
Michael Walsh
Hope someone can help me with this.
The house fuse blew while I was installing Mcafee. When I eventually got
the PC started it started doing strange things which just seemed to get
worse over time.
*On the first attempt at starting, after the mains failure, I was told that
the system couldn't find my SCSI drive, but that was ok after I restarted
it.
*I could neither fully install nor uninstall Mcafee, but while I was trying
to remedy that, I found that the PC was taking longer and longer to shutdown
whenever I did a reboot. In addition, I noticed that various applications
were unable to close on their own and needed to be manually closed.
*Then I noticed the start-ups were getting longer and then I noticed that
open tasks wouldn't appear on the taskbar, although I could find them by
alt-del.
*Loaded programmes wouldn't start (although things like Solitaire and
FreeCell started ok) and
*when I went into Services I found that most of them weren't started.
*If I try to start them I get an 'Error 1053: The service is not responding
........'.
*Trying to open Properties on any Service is just plain ignored.
*The Extended Services pane is empty but Standard shows them.
*In Task Manager Processes, none of the tasks, apart from system idle shows
any UserName (system idle shows System)
*Finally noticed that Remote Procedure Call, in Services, showed Starting
instead of Started.
*It, and Automatic Updates, stay in this state for about 2 hours, after
which time it is possible to manually start Services.
*Despite starting and shutting down very slowly, the CPU usage is about 1-2%
*Properties now works, but opening the Dependencies tab causes a Win32 error
and will not open.
*Windows update opens the update browser but then fails to do anything.
*Help & Support opens and allows me to enter a query in the search box but,
although the screen changes to show the usual two panes, the Results pane
remains empty and doesn't even show the Suggested Topics, Full-text Search
Matches or Microsoft Knowledge Bases sub-panes.
*Search from the Start Menu won't open but if I go there via Windows
Explorer it opens, but all it then shows is a dog scratching itself -
nothing else.
*I can eventually access the internet, but the network icon doesn't show in
the notification area and the Network Connections window is totally blank.
*When it lets me open the Restore process, I've tried to restore the system
to the day before this started happening, but although it pretends to go all
the way through the restore process, when I click on the final 'Next' button
to set it restoring my system, it just sits there laughing at me.
(Paranoid? What do you mean?)
If I intercept the Windows start-up with F5 and beg it to restore the system
to the last known good start-up, I still get everything happening as above.
My system has been running ok since I built it seven months ago and runs XP
Pro with SP2 (all pukkah)
I've spent four days on this so far. Will someone please save my sanity, my
PC and a perfectly harmless lounge window by offering some advice.
Many, many thanks
Michael Walsh
The house fuse blew while I was installing Mcafee. When I eventually got
the PC started it started doing strange things which just seemed to get
worse over time.
*On the first attempt at starting, after the mains failure, I was told that
the system couldn't find my SCSI drive, but that was ok after I restarted
it.
*I could neither fully install nor uninstall Mcafee, but while I was trying
to remedy that, I found that the PC was taking longer and longer to shutdown
whenever I did a reboot. In addition, I noticed that various applications
were unable to close on their own and needed to be manually closed.
*Then I noticed the start-ups were getting longer and then I noticed that
open tasks wouldn't appear on the taskbar, although I could find them by
alt-del.
*Loaded programmes wouldn't start (although things like Solitaire and
FreeCell started ok) and
*when I went into Services I found that most of them weren't started.
*If I try to start them I get an 'Error 1053: The service is not responding
........'.
*Trying to open Properties on any Service is just plain ignored.
*The Extended Services pane is empty but Standard shows them.
*In Task Manager Processes, none of the tasks, apart from system idle shows
any UserName (system idle shows System)
*Finally noticed that Remote Procedure Call, in Services, showed Starting
instead of Started.
*It, and Automatic Updates, stay in this state for about 2 hours, after
which time it is possible to manually start Services.
*Despite starting and shutting down very slowly, the CPU usage is about 1-2%
*Properties now works, but opening the Dependencies tab causes a Win32 error
and will not open.
*Windows update opens the update browser but then fails to do anything.
*Help & Support opens and allows me to enter a query in the search box but,
although the screen changes to show the usual two panes, the Results pane
remains empty and doesn't even show the Suggested Topics, Full-text Search
Matches or Microsoft Knowledge Bases sub-panes.
*Search from the Start Menu won't open but if I go there via Windows
Explorer it opens, but all it then shows is a dog scratching itself -
nothing else.
*I can eventually access the internet, but the network icon doesn't show in
the notification area and the Network Connections window is totally blank.
*When it lets me open the Restore process, I've tried to restore the system
to the day before this started happening, but although it pretends to go all
the way through the restore process, when I click on the final 'Next' button
to set it restoring my system, it just sits there laughing at me.
(Paranoid? What do you mean?)
If I intercept the Windows start-up with F5 and beg it to restore the system
to the last known good start-up, I still get everything happening as above.
My system has been running ok since I built it seven months ago and runs XP
Pro with SP2 (all pukkah)
I've spent four days on this so far. Will someone please save my sanity, my
PC and a perfectly harmless lounge window by offering some advice.
Many, many thanks
Michael Walsh