Tracking down events

[Andrew E. Baumann]

I'm having some odd quirks appear in my system, and was wondering if anyone
knew anything that might give me a hand tracking down the cause. The
primary event is Ctrl-Alt-Del does not always work (that is, once it does
not work, it will not work until after a re-boot -- and there not always;
actually it hasn't been working for a couple of reboots, so more not working
than working).

Have I accidentally turned off a switch? Is something interfering? The
buttons on the keyboard work fine on their own, so I don't think it's that.

_Any_ guesses would be helpful. There are other much rarer quirks, but I
believe them to be domino effects. This is the one continuous and telling
problem.

Thanks in advance.
(If you could, email me directly as well.)

 

[Galen]

In Andrew E. Baumann <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

I'm having some odd quirks appear in my system, and was wondering if
anyone knew anything that might give me a hand tracking down the
cause. The primary event is Ctrl-Alt-Del does not always work (that
is, once it does not work, it will not work until after a re-boot --
and there not always; actually it hasn't been working for a couple of
reboots, so more not working than working).

Have I accidentally turned off a switch? Is something interfering? The
buttons on the keyboard work fine on their own, so I don't think it's
that.
_Any_ guesses would be helpful. There are other much rarer quirks,
but I believe them to be domino effects. This is the one continuous
and telling problem.

Thanks in advance.
(If you could, email me directly as well.)

Due to potential complaints I don't usually email people about these sorts
of things. I must admit that this sounds like an odd one. The task manager
not opening is often a sign of malware? But, then again, it would be more
consistant and shouldn't ever open except maybe in safe mode. Or perhaps
when the process that was running had been turned off. Does it work, when it
does work, up until you've done a certain thing like go online? There's one
idea I suppose. I'd give it a formal malware cleaning as I can't really
think of any other reasons for this to happen as you didn't mention there
being a problem with other applications not opening at the same time which
would have made me think resources.

Malware Cleaning :
http://www.kgiii.info/windows/all/general/malwarefix.html

Galen
--

"But there are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world
without them."

Sherlock Holmes

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Chances are you have a virus, as many disable that function. The best thing
to do is to run a full system scan in Safe mode with your current product
and one or two others. Free virus removal tools:

http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/
http://www.emsisoft.com/en/
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/8/lng/us/tpl/v5/nid/3001#3001
http://www.f-secure.com/download-purchase/tools.shtml

Also, you may use this free on-line scanner:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

How to start in Safe mode:
http://www.rickrogers.org/fixes.htm#Safe mode

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org