Appls won't open until shutdown

G

Guest

A friend of mine has a son who has an HP Pavilion notebook with Windows XP
Home Edition. The computer has been misbehaving lately. Windows comes up and
you can log in. You can bring up a command prompt and enter commands. You can
bring up Task Manager. But, some applications like Norton Anti-Virus and the
Windows Control Panel won't come up. You can click but nothing happens. Some
applications come up but then go into an unresponsive state. It's pretty odd.
I tried using MSCONFIG to turn off appls running at startup. That didn't fix
the problem. I tried turning off services and again no luck. I tried
uninstalling the display adapter via My Computer -> Properties and rebooting.
No luck. A strange behavior is that when you initiate shutdown the appls you
tried to bring up start popping up and then failing of course (since Windows
is shutting down). It's as if something is unblocked and things start to
work. Any suggestions (besides re-installing from scratch)? Thanks!
 
G

Guest

Thanks! I should also have mentioned that I checked the
hard drive via chkdsk and it seems to be OK. And, I tried
a Safe mode from MSCONFIG and it didn't do much for
me either. This problem started recently and the boy is
a typical teenager who runs lots of games and stuff.

Since I can't run Norton or the spyware software that is
installed on the machine I may have to try connecting to
the Symantec Web site and do a scan. I'll check out your
tips, too.

I'll also try Last Good Configuration and System Restore
(if there is a recent backup). And, I've been searching
for ideas on the HP Web site.

Glen
 
M

Malke

gmk15 said:
Thanks! I should also have mentioned that I checked the
hard drive via chkdsk and it seems to be OK. And, I tried
a Safe mode from MSCONFIG and it didn't do much for
me either. This problem started recently and the boy is
a typical teenager who runs lots of games and stuff.

Since I can't run Norton or the spyware software that is
installed on the machine I may have to try connecting to
the Symantec Web site and do a scan. I'll check out your
tips, too.

I'll also try Last Good Configuration and System Restore
(if there is a recent backup). And, I've been searching
for ideas on the HP Web site.
Click to expand...

Since your friend has a teenager, malware is a very high probability. I
don't recommend online scans. Instead, get all tools/updates from a
different, known-clean machine and put them on a usb thumb drive or
burn to cd-r. Here are general malware removal steps:

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

Include scanning with either Sysclean or Multi_AV, plus Ewido. Do all
prep/finishing work and follow instructions to do all scans in Safe
Mode.

When all else fails, run HijackThis and post your log in one of the
specialty forums listed at the link above (not here, please).

If the procedures look too complex - and there is no shame in admitting
this isn't your cup of tea - take the machine to a professional
computer repair shop (not your local version of BigStoreUSA).

Malke
 
B

Bert Kinney

Hi,

The Last Known Good Configuration startup option provides a way to recover from
problems such as a newly added driver that may be incorrect for your hardware.
It does not solve problems caused by corrupted or missing drivers or files.
When you choose Last Known Good Configuration, only the information in registry
key HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet is restored. Any changes made to other
registry keys remain.

What happened when you ran System Restore?
 
G

Guest

OK. Here's an update on what I've found or tried so far:
I installed Sysclean.com and ran it. It did not find any viruses.
I installed Ewido and ran it. It found some tracking cookies but nothing else.
I installed Spybot Search & Destroy and it didn't find anything.
I tried some malware removals - Vundofix.exe, Sysprotect, Look2Me - and they didn't fix anything.
I deleted all the Temporary Internet files - no change to the system behavior.
I tried to run cleanmgr from Start-> Run but it won't come up (on a regular boot or in Safe mode).
I tried to bring up My Computer, Control Panel, Norton Anti-Virus, and System Restore in Safe mode and none come up. System Restore gets the frame of its window up but then just sits there. Windows thinks it is non-responsive.
I tried Last Known Good Configuration and it didn't make any difference either.
Click to expand...

So, this thing is pretty weird. I suspect registry corruption of some kind.
I saw in the Microsoft support section a case of a thing called Qcbar that
makes registry changes and causes some of the behavior I've seen. I checked
the registry and didn't find it on this computer. Since I can't get System
Restore to run and I haven't found any other problems I think re-install is
all that's left to do unless someone has another bright idea.

Thanks again for all the help! It was quite an education and in a morbid way
kind of fascinating.

Glen
 

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