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Odd things are happening

By brifd1 ·
From my last question (about swap files), I noted that I have a computer with Windows XP Professional whose speed has grinded to a halt. Here are some other issues:

* Regularly doesn't complete loading everything, so I have to do a cold boot much more often than I'd like to (warm boot doesn't do anything, neither does Ctrl\Alt\Delete).
* When I try to remove programs using the control panel, there's no list of programs unless I change the drop-down menu to something like last used.
* Yesterday when it booted all the way through, my son's AOL account came on in the middle of a IM "conversation" (one of his friends was querying who he thought was my son as to whether he was here)...also, his list of buddies came up.

Should I remove, then re-install AOL IM? Will that mean that my son will need to re-populate his "buddies" list (I know, a small price to pay if it clears up the rest of this)???

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by pierrejamme In reply to Odd things are happening

Try running "Updated" versions of AdAware and SpyBot first. Chances are you are loaded up with spyware if you use AOL.

SpyBot is Germnan and is located at: http://www.safer-networking.org/ Be sure to search for updates and then you can scan. Remove everything.

AdAware is at:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
Be sure to search for updates and then you can scan. Remove everything.

Another good option is to use Google's Toolbar for searches. The new on has several good security features built into it. Go to www.google.com, then click on "Services & Tools" and scroll down the page to the goole toolbar download, which you can install from there.
Most of the other searches take you through spyware ridden territory.

Anything AOL is a mess as far as I am concerned, but good luck.

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by brifd1 In reply to

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by w2ktechman In reply to Odd things are happening

First I would do the above, Ad-Aware and Spybot. should clean it up prety well. If not
it sounds like it may be memory errors (possible) or a hard drive problem. Run checkdisk and see if any bad sectors show up. run MSINFO to see how much memory is being registered in windows ( I have seen a machine that registered 256 in the bios and 192 in windows). I have also seen similar problems with RAM being different. It appears to work but after a short while random problems start. Also try swapping one memory stick at a time to see if the problem corrects itself.

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by brifd1 In reply to

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by brifd1 In reply to Odd things are happening

This is part of it, but there's more: frequently, when attempting to open Internet Explorer, IE opens up for an instant (a blink of an eye), but then closes. At first, it seemed to have something to do with Zone Alarm. Reason: ZA wouldn't load-something about a vector, with the only choice to click "Cancel." After loading it manually (from Programs), then IE would work normally. Now, however, that's not the case. Also, everything's unbelievably slow, and this computer has 512 mb of RAM! So, I'm thinking of just starting to remove programs, starting with my son's games! What d'yer think?

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by brifd1 In reply to Odd things are happening

How do you do MSINFO???

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by brifd1 In reply to Odd things are happening

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