Weird window on startup

[Guest]

A friend has a dell notebook with win xp home. I was trying to help her solve
a problem. when the machine shuts down it had the dreaded end program screen
at one point it said "sample not responding". and on startup a strange window
comes up before booting up. Its a regular windows window but the text at the
top is a series of square boxes like some wing ding font. I click ok and the
window goes away and the machine starts up.

I scanned for spyware with adaware and norton internet security. norton
found the msn chat sniffer and removed it. "I think". the problem is still
there. I removed all entries from msconfig startup. no differance. and...it
behaves the same way in safe mode. Im puzzled. does anyone have any insight?

Greg

 

[BillW50]

A friend has a dell notebook with win xp home. I was trying to help
her solve a problem. when the machine shuts down it had the dreaded
end program screen at one point it said "sample not responding". and
on startup a strange window comes up before booting up. Its a regular
windows window but the text at the top is a series of square boxes
like some wing ding font. I click ok and the window goes away and the
machine starts up.

I scanned for spyware with adaware and norton internet security.
norton found the msn chat sniffer and removed it. "I think". the
problem is still there. I removed all entries from msconfig startup.
no differance. and...it behaves the same way in safe mode. Im
puzzled. does anyone have any insight?

Greg

Oh this doesn't sound good. It there isn't any virus or malware left on
the computer (and there is a good possibility there is), then the system
sounds corrupt.

DO NOT REFORMAT!!! Not yet anyway. Wait a bit until you get some good
replies. And if you go this route, a Windows repair is the safest. All
Windows updates will be gone, but everything else should be okay.

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

This requires a retail version of Windows XP install disc. Your friend
probably doesn't have one. If all they have is a recovery CD, well that
won't help most likely. Well it might, but ask questions ok?