Low on virtual memory: Winlogon

[El Marko]

I will try to be concise here.

I have a client running XP Home edition on a Dell Pentium system less than a
year old with a bundled consumer McAfee package.

The past few weeks they have experienced a remarkable degradation in
performance. When they called me in last night, they were unable to even
logon to their system. I was able to boot into safe mode and found their IE
had been hijacked with a new start page and a search bar. I ran Spybot which
found 183 items, cleaned those out and enabled the immunization features. I
went into Add/Remove Programs and found My Search components and a Web
Casino program. I uninstalled those and did another Spybot run.

At this point I could logon to Windows. I checked their Task Manager and the
page file was nearly at capacity, with the Winlogon process using far and
away the highest amount of memory, and climbing. I would then try and end
McAfee processes to throw off any ballast. Despite the PF graph showing
small improvements, the system tray soon displayed a "Low on virtual memory"
notice which said the OS was adjusting the size of the paging file. Soon the
system logged itself off. When I would try to log in again I was told there
was insufficient storage space to complete my request. So I power-cycled the
machine with the same results as above.

It appears to me there is still something buzzing around which prevents the
Winlogon process from completing. However, I am afraid we are looking at
wiping the drive and starting over. I would really like to avoid this, so is
there anything I need to look for or a utility I can try?

Thanks
mm

 

[Guest]

boot into safe mod
start ru
msconfi
under startup check what programs are loading and note them down
under general select diagnostic start u
reboot the machine, see if you can log in normally if you can and the system is stable, load up task manager and see which process's have been loaded up.

then it's a case of removing the errant programs either through add remove, or deleting keys through registry (hk_lm\software\microsoft\windows\current version\run) and folder in program files

also worthwhile going to http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/ to check for virus'
download stinger and run that, pretty good program can fit on a floppy

let me know how it goes

lava
bit long winded process

 

[El Marko]

Followed your steps but still had a problem getting a logon.

BUT!

In a final act of "Lets see what happens" in System Config, I disabled all
McAfee services and was able to logon normally in normal mode with very
little CPU and PF overhead.

I've always been partial to Symantec's AV solutions because they seem to be
easier to work with and seldom put a load on the computer. Is there a fix
for this or should I just take away their McAfee and put them on Symantec?

Thanks
mm

boot into safe mode
start run
msconfig
under startup check what programs are loading and note them down.
under general select diagnostic start up
reboot the machine, see if you can log in normally if you can and the

system is stable, load up task manager and see which process's have been
loaded up.

then it's a case of removing the errant programs either through add

remove, or deleting keys through registry
(hk_lm\software\microsoft\windows\current version\run) and folder in program
files.

 

[Haus]

Hello
Low virtual memory warning is not a hardware issue it is a software issue
and it sounds like you found part of the problem and will more then likely
have the same problem with Symantec for it does the same thing as McAfee,
check to see if you have an older version of AV software or something that
is conflicting with the AV.

--
Hope This Helps
Haus
Not a MVP
Not a MS-MVP
Not nothing just a good ole boy..