Device manager will not display

[Guest]

Device manager, as well as most of the Administrative tools will not display
on my computer in XP. Actually, they display for a split second, then
disappear! My CD RW and DVD drives stopped working and I'm trying to
troubleshoot them in Device Manager. I can see they have yellow exclaimation
points, but the window will not stay open for me to investigate. Any ideas?
Thanks

 

[Galen]

In rlj <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Device manager, as well as most of the Administrative tools will not
display on my computer in XP. Actually, they display for a split
second, then disappear! My CD RW and DVD drives stopped working and
I'm trying to troubleshoot them in Device Manager. I can see they
have yellow exclaimation points, but the window will not stay open
for me to investigate. Any ideas? Thanks

That's usually a sign of malware:

Virus:
www.grisoft.com - AVG
www.antivir.com - AntiVir
http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft/index.cfm - CA eTrust

Spyware:
www.lavasoft.de - AdAware
http://security.kolla.de/ - Spybot
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx -
Microsoft Anti-Spyware Beta

Trojan:
www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/ - a Squared
http://swatit.org/ Swat It

Try one from each group except the spyware group and in that case use all
three. Update them, scan in safe mode. Remove any junk they find. Before
scanning download LSPFix to repair your damaged WinSock.

LSP-Fix - a free program to repair damaged Winsock 2 stacks:
http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm

Galen

 

[hustedj]

Try running a repair on the OS.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm