Xp is no bueno FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HELP ME!!!!

norocksplease · Post by **norocksplease** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 1:41 am

So I'm pretty pissed off at my windows XP machine right now because of the error messages. It has 2 processors and still chugs....I grant you that I spend enough time online to kill most people and that tends to clog computers but this is ridiculous.

I'm doing the defrag, virus scan, and all that fun stuff, running spybot and adaware.

My question is, is there anything else I should do?

And also, so that I can save on start up and just generally running power, what .exe's MUST be running for windows XP media center edition to function. I want to know so I can clear out all the crap dell bundle on this **** thing and only keep what I need/want. (google desktop, AIM, yahoo messanger, McAfee, etc)

Thanks

BakerKlan · Post by **BakerKlan** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:02 am

I assume that you were happy with its speed when it was just out of the box...So based upon your post it seems as though you may be infected with spyware/adware which really makes things miserable. Even the best spyware/adware removal software does not catch or remove all spyware and much spyware will replicate itself after being removed.

Something you can look at to determine what processes if any may be affecting your machine is to open up the task manager (You can do this by right clicking on the task bar and selecting Task Manager) and look first at what applications are running, are these applications something you are familiar with or could they be a rogue program running and stealing system resources. Secondly, click on the Processes tab and sort the column labeled CPU (You can do this by clicking on this column to sort by ascending or descending) is there a process that is using up a large amount of CPU resources?

Anyhow, these suggestions will give you a start as to where the problem lies but I'm afraid that in the end you'll have to reformat and reinstall XP and applications.

Intelliduner · Post by **Intelliduner** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:32 am

"Hi, I'm a Mac."
"And I'm a PC."

GlamisLovingFool · Post by **GlamisLovingFool** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 9:46 am

Another thing I do is constantly delete cookies, temporary internet files and clear the history on Internet Explorer. Seems to help me, but you could also have an issue with spyware etc.

To quickly clean up IE.
Right click on the Desktop icon
Click Properties
Click Delete Cookies Button
Click Delete Files Button
Click Clear History Button and set the days to keep pages in hisory to zero.

If you dont have the IE icon on your desktop, just launch IE and click tools, Internet options and follow the rest from there.

BakerKlan · Post by **BakerKlan** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:47 am

Intelliduner wrote:"Hi, I'm a Mac."
"And I'm a PC."

yeah yeah yeah, you Mac guys are die hards but I will say that Microsoft is doing nice copying job in Vista

norocksplease · Post by **norocksplease** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 3:08 pm

problem is I don't KNOW what programs must stay and which can go, I had it all figured out in 98 back when I had that. The computer still plays games on a level I can't believe but it gets confused easily and then gives me error messages in simple things like audacity, photoshop, and IE. Did d a full system scan and a full defrag, not one thing other than tracking cookies.

It's got me pissed. I'm using firefox now instead of IE because it's crap to start with. Photoshop is acting up now as well...I guess all my old programs got trashed at some point...

crash · Post by **crash** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 3:10 pm

I just downloaded/upgraded to IE 7 and I must say, pages seem to load faster and the new look is NICE. VERY clean.

BakerKlan · Post by **BakerKlan** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 3:26 pm

norocksplease wrote:problem is I don't KNOW what programs must stay and which can go, I had it all figured out in 98 back when I had that. The computer still plays games on a level I can't believe but it gets confused easily and then gives me error messages in simple things like audacity, photoshop, and IE. Did d a full system scan and a full defrag, not one thing other than tracking cookies.

It's got me pissed. I'm using firefox now instead of IE because it's crap to start with. Photoshop is acting up now as well...I guess all my old programs got trashed at some point...

Do a screen shot of programs that are running in Task Manager as well as a screenie of CPU Usage and post here

Greg Hall · Post by **Greg Hall** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 10:29 pm

One word.....Unix

Papa Perry · Post by **Papa Perry** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:32 pm

Greg Hall wrote:One word.....Unix

for someone like you or I sure. But for someone who can't keep XP running, might be a bit of a stretch....

norocksplease · Post by **norocksplease** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 2:51 pm

Papa Perry wrote:
Greg Hall wrote:One word.....Unix
for someone like you or I sure. But for someone who can't keep XP running, might be a bit of a stretch....

I do take some offence to that but whatever...

Anyway, I went through and found as many start up programs as I could that were useless and got rid of them using msconfig, you wouldn't believe how much crap was there. Also started using Firefox instead of IE, no problems, no error messages, runs smooth, go figure.

BakerKlan · Post by **BakerKlan** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:08 pm

norocksplease wrote:
Papa Perry wrote:
Greg Hall wrote:One word.....Unix
for someone like you or I sure. But for someone who can't keep XP running, might be a bit of a stretch....
I do take some offence to that but whatever...

Anyway, I went through and found as many start up programs as I could that were useless and got rid of them using msconfig, you wouldn't believe how much crap was there. Also started using Firefox instead of IE, no problems, no error messages, runs smooth, go figure.

Good Job!

Greg Hall · Post by **Greg Hall** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 8:59 pm

BakerKlan wrote:
norocksplease wrote:
Papa Perry wrote: for someone like you or I sure. But for someone who can't keep XP running, might be a bit of a stretch....
I do take some offence to that but whatever...

Anyway, I went through and found as many start up programs as I could that were useless and got rid of them using msconfig, you wouldn't believe how much crap was there. Also started using Firefox instead of IE, no problems, no error messages, runs smooth, go figure.
Good Job!

Once again, Great Job!

norocksplease · Post by **norocksplease** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 10:12 pm

Are there any other nifty tools out there?

Post by **jhitesma** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 10:45 pm

Process explorer is pretty handy:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysint ... lorer.mspx

Lets you see what makes up the various programs that are currently running. Very helpfull for tracking down some well hidden bits of spyware.

Glamisman · Post by **Glamisman** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 12:42 am

Try starting in Safe Mode with Networking and see if things are back to normal.

bapyoubip · Post by **bapyoubip** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:09 am

if all else fails, try reformatting