I have an e-machine, T-1150. I am using windows XP. It has a mind of its own. In any application, I can be writing this post, say, and all of a sudden, the window will close, others will open and close, and this happens for a minute or so. When finished, there is usually a window open but it always varies. "My computer" will pop up then close. Then my start menu(open and close). It just freaks out. I hit control+alt+del and that helps a LITTLE . It goes through its process and leaves me with,lets say, a themes menu window box. I don't know how else to describe this very frustrating problem. I've tried a sassor worm detector, a stinger (from Mcaffe), tried to do this with the restore feature turned off, tried cleaning the registry, and have run out of ideas. I know you brainiacs have the answer. Thanks
It just did it again. It popped up the start menu box, and a box in the bottom left that one would get if you right click the mouse. Of coarse it closed my INReview app, and I had to re-open it. Please help. You may be saving the life of this computer
I Have run pestscan,ad-aware 6, spyblocker, and avg virus scan. And went to trendmicro site for the free scan. I don't kknow what viri is but I assume it is just a virus scan, right?
can you post a little .jpg of the task manager processes? i know not every malicious app shows up there, but its a start. there may be something in there that someone may be able to recognize as a troublemaker.
I was waiting for you Larke. This is your area, No? I didn't know I could print out a page of the running apps. I will try. I am also going to try your remedy now( ewido). I will let you know. Thanks
just hit print screen while you have the task manager processes showing and then paste that into a graphics program. save it as a jpg (not bmp, for size issues) and then upload that as an attachment.
ewido takes about as long as a virus scanner so you'll have to be patient with it. it's not a quick process like ad-aware or spybot. but it's very thorough. actually if you don't want to fool with the print screen and stuff, ewido (under the analysis tab) will let you save the running processes to a txt file which you could also upload.
[and if worse comes to worse we can attempt AM's "hard reset" method of chucking the computer out the window ]
If I chuck it, i'll attach an mpeg file to view. I tried the ewido scan. It took awhile and concluded it found no infected files. As I was looking through some files it highlighted, the machine did it again. It closed the window, opened and closed several other apps. EERRR. I am now going to try the virus scan you spoke of Larke. Thanks guys
Larke, I hit cont+alt+del to get the task manager, and I go to the applications tabs but I don't see a " Print Screen" button. I tried control+ P. Didn't work. I can't highlight the processes either( to cut or copy). I also downloaded the norton virus program ( trial) and did the pre-install scan. It went through 60000 files. Found nothing. I guess I will do the full scan next. Looks like I will be needing instructions on how to re-formatt(without losing anything). I'll let you guys know about the full scan when it is done.
It is the 'Prt Scr' button on the upper right hand corner of your keyboard, devildog. Once you hit it, open up Paint and and click on 'paste'. Then save the file as a jpg and post it here.
Hey Devildog, if you are certain you want to cleanwipe and reinstall everything again, go to your bios settings and change the loading options from A:, C:, D: to D:, A:, C:. Then restart your computer and insert your Windows XP setup CD again. Then the XP setup would startup and then you can choose to reformat the hard drive in one of the steps I think.
Here I am assuming that your A: is the floppy disk drive, C: is your local hard drive, and D: is your CD/DVD-Rom drive.
advance: if the drive is FAT32 then you can download a boot floppy image off of the internet and use that to format your hard drive.
if it's NTFS then you'll have to boot off your CD (check your BIOS settings like AM described to make sure you can boot from your cd) and go from there. the process is pretty straightforward and the cd takes you through every step.
devildog: if you have an HP then you probably have a restore disk or something that would get the computer to a clean factory install and you wouldn't have to install the OS and all your programs. but if you want to try one last thing, look at my attachment. close everything that i haven't marked thru in red. the ones in blue circles may or may not let you close them, if they won't then don't worry about those two. do normal stuff, do some internet browsing and stuff or whatever you seem to be doing when it acts up. if it messes up again then you'll probably have to just restore or reinstall. but the ones i didn't cross out are pretty much the minimum you can run your computer on just to rule out those other programs. AM is right, none of those i crossed out look suspicious or malicious. but there still is the chance of some incompatibility somewhere.
Warning Before running restore CD of HP (for that matter any restore CD) BACKUP ALL YOUR CRITICAL DATA. It will erase everything . After fresh installation install lates Windows Update and firewall. That help reduce these problems.
You guys are awesome. Thanks. I tried deleting some of those running apps Larke and about two or three into it, it just shut down. I DO have these restore CD's(2 of them) and would love to know how to get it factory fresh without having to load all my programs again. Some I don't have the disc for any longer.(Microsoft office), so this would be the only way to keep these programs ,I think. How do I back-up my system onto a disc? Once I re-load everything, do I just put in the back up cd and that is that? Or will I be there for hours loading certain programs and drivers etc. Thanks
in that other thread that advance started there is a suggestion to use msconfig. since your computer shut down while trying to stop those processes that may be the way to go.
so start up msconfig (start, run, "msconfig") and when you're in there click on the services tab. near the bottom there is the option to "hide microsoft services". click on that so that all the native windows services are hidden (those should only be enabled/disabled in the 'services' mmc console). and left after hiding the microsoft services can be unchecked safely. go to the "start" tab and uncheck everything there. they can all be unchecked safely. anything in the 'startup' tab is post-windows installed and isn't vital. you will lose a lot of functionality if you have any 'tweaking' style programs to make life easier but you will also lose all the crap that hp has running on your system in the background as well. this will be a sure fire way to see if anything running in the background is causing a conflict. make sure you go to your 'startup' folder in the start menu and delete anything in there. or just move it to the desktop if it's something that you do, indeed, use.
if you have the factory restore discs then any programs that were on the computer when you got it will still be on there. anything you added yourself will have to be reinstalled. so if you installed office after you got your computer and you no longer have the disc... that's gonna be a problem. like the architect said, anything you don't save will be gone if it wasn't on the computer when you first booted up the day you bought it. documents, pics, emails, email address book, REGISTRATION codes for any shareware you may have downloaded and paid for, internet favorites. all these things (and others) i would backup to cd. even if you are going to use a back-up program.
do you have windows restore enabled? have you tried using a restore point prior to all the 'weirdness'?
i know there's all kinds of stuff coming at you and you probably feel overwhelmed, just don't rush into any decision. here's my take on what you should do next.
1. check your windows restore, see if it's enabled and see if there's a point you could restore to before your computer started acting up.
2. use the msconfig tip advance suggested. with all that stuff disabled, see if your computer still acts up.
3. come back and talk to us if you decide a backup/ restore is needed.
[just don't start backing up program folders to cd, though. i've seen it so many times. people just copying folders to cd, thinking that when they reinstall they can just put the folder back and be done with it. most software needs to be installed into your computer and can't be run from it's folder from any arbitrary location. i'm just saying this to make sure you realize this (even if you know better) because i've had people do this more times than i can count. this is a close second to people deleting 'dll' files to free up disk space. if you do decide to backup/ restore, we'll find a good shareware backup program for you to use.]
Larke2000 said this in post #26 : advance: if the drive is FAT32 then you can download a boot floppy image off of the internet and use that to format your hard drive.
If you have a Windows 98 startup floppy (I do, and yes, I know it is old fashioned -- I don't use 98 anymore though), you can just use it and run the fdisk program from command line. The fastest way to format.
If you have a Windows 98 startup floppy (I do, and yes, I know it is old fashioned -- I don't use 98 anymore though), you can just use it and run the fdisk program from command line. The fastest way to format.
M.
yeah, i've got a windows 98 boot cd. it's just that most people with newer machines don't have easy access to a 98 computer. plus there's a site here: http://www.bootdisk.com/ with boot images that you can download instead of trying to track down someone with a 98 machine.
all people aren't 'forward-thinkers' like we are MM. i treasure my 98 boot disc.
Larke2000 said this in post #32 : yeah, i've got a windows 98 boot cd. it's just that most people with newer machines don't have easy access to a 98 computer. plus there's a site here: http://www.bootdisk.com/ with boot images that you can download instead of trying to track down someone with a 98 machine.
all people aren't 'forward-thinkers' like we are MM. i treasure my 98 boot disc.
Yes, sometimes oldies are goodies, even with computers.
I actually didn't have a startup floppy. I borrowed one from a friend who had them by the dozen.
devildog said this in post #35 : If this works, is it gone?
You are talking about removing the extra start-up applications, right?
If yes, then no, it is not gone forever. If you ever use or execute a file that in turn starts up that problematic executable again, you might have to repeat the process.
if this works, devildog. what you can then do is decide, 'hey, i used to use [so and so application] but now it's not there or isn't working right' and then we can systematically restore individual lines to enable functionality that you may have lost and see if the problem returns or not. it will be a slow process but it's better than a reinstall if we can avoid it. (yeah, you're thinking "we?" )
Yeah, a complete wipe-and-reinstall can be a tiring process, especially if you have a lot of programs you need to reinstall and data you need to restore. Plus we would need to write more.
Kidding Devildog. We would do all that is possible to help you.
I unchecked all the running apps( after hiding the microsoft products) in the msconfig tool. This DOES seem to help but it still does it occasionally. I guess I will need to wipe everything out and start fresh. Yea!! I guess I just insert a blank cd in the burner and drag & drop pretty much everything in there. Right? Should I download a backup tool since my xp doesn't have one? Is my dvd xcopy just for dvd's or can I back up the puter with this( I guess I will just try and locate the manual) After I do this, I guess, I should insert the restore cd(1) into the drive and restart the machine( so hopefully it will just take over and walk me through the reformatting process when it reboots). After it is factory fresh, I just start installing Quicken home & Business, dvd xcopy and every other program I have a disc for. After which I guess I then try to put my back up files onto the fresh puter. I think this is the only way some saved data will be recognized, correct? I still don't know how to get my addresses back in though( e-mail). Is there anything I might be overlooking, or anything that is wrong with all my assumptions? I may change my username to P.I.T.A.. ( Pain in.......) Thanks guys
And at your leisure po lease tell me how to prevent this in the future. Any free downloads worthy, since the others didn't even detect anything? I don't know about firewalls either. Spyware?
Devildog, I don't use Outlook or similar programs so I don't know how you can backup your address book. Larke might be able to help you with that.
However, I think you have it pretty much nailed as to what you need to do to cleanwipe-and-reinstall. I don't want to confuse you, but if you are using a restore CD, you can simply put it in the drive (while you are using the computer) and the restore program will start up. I am just saying this because with restore CDs you don't even need to restart the computer before putting them in. You do not even need to change you BIOS settings.
Anyway, as I said in another thread, be careful with the files you back up.
And no, you don't need to change your username to P.I.T.A. We love to help out other people.
M.
p.s. As for free software, I have used a free anti-virus called AVG. It is used extensively in my department and I have found it to be okay. There is a free firewall available called Zone Alarm. I think it is okay, so if you want you can check out that one too.
I use avg also . I'll check out the zone alarm.thanks. Does mt computer have a firewall? Do I need to enable it? Do I run Zone Alarm in addition to it? Ohh I will have to reconfigure my e-mail if I remember correctly. I know you don't use outlook but maybe you or someone else knows this. I remember something about having to go somewhere and enter hmtl and or smtl.tampabayrr.com in the outgoing server box or something like that. Thanks for any help. I will check this site once I am up again to find out how to get the e-mail thing going. Thanks. Here I go. Let the games begin.
Devildog, Windows XP has a built-in firewall. I just referred you to Zone Alarm since you asked about free software. I didn't mean to confuse you, I just wanted to give you more options.
Anyway, what you are saying about the email settings is how to configure it to send and recieve emails. If your email server is tampabayrr.com, then you will need to enter 'smtp.tampabayrr.com' to send emails. To recieve them, we will first need to know whether your server is a POP or an IMAP server. When you find this out we can go ahead and get that one fixed too.
Yes, the xp firewall. I wasn't sure if it was something I needed to enable. I googled the Oulook express question. Thanks anyway, Ron. When I am done re booting I will see about avoiding this mess in the future, with any advice I can get.
Boy that was fast. I backed everything up, and did the full restore. I didn't even get a chance to load in the "new" computer name when it did it again. WTF?
In the beginning it warned that everything would be lost. I'm not sure if it used the word reformatting. I did restart it with the restore disc inserted. It just walked it through. It poped up a box eventually that said symatec(?) Ghost as someone suggested using. I guess it is installed already(ghost). It was too fast obviously to "clean" the system.
Ron Ackerman said this in post #55 : Oh you know what I just re read you initial post. To me it sound like a stuck mouse button. Or at least a bad mouse.
The pointer will freeze for a second and then all hell breaks loose. The window you were working in will more than likely close( at least minimize) and other apps will open and close by themselves. Many times it is the start menu window or the themes box that is left when it is all through. After freaking out, sometimes it won't let you do anything. It's like frozen. Then I hit the famous Control-alt-del and when that box pops up it suddenly gives me the ability to close the other windows that have opened mysterically. When I am on the web it seems the worst( even outlook express seems to bring it on). Should I try it again? Would it do me any good?
Duh. Now why didn't I think of a freaked out mouse? I have had problems with mice before, but not this kind. But it does make sense. It is a possiblilty Devildog.
devildog said this in post #62 : so at this point would you suggest buying a new mouse and going from there?
I cannot say anything like that Devildog. I am just speculating. I will say let Larke and Ron give their opinions. I would also suggest you get some local opinion from an HP/Compaq service technicians.
Boy, Thats the safe answer I guess I will. It's only a few bucks.
But lets suppose it is not. Is there a possibility that I didn't do a complete erase? The computer has NOTHING on it so I suppose it did the job. Is it possible for a virus to get saved and loaded back in by that ghost program( or any formatting utensil for that matter)? Just wanted to know before re-installing everything.
Devildog, if it has nothing on it and it looks the way you first bought it (the settings and everything I mean), then I suppose everything has been erased.
As for the programs, if you are going to install them from CDs, I don't think there would be any viruses hiding there. It is most unlikely, especially if they are factory made CDs and well known and reliable programs.
As I have said before, it your files and other small utility programs that you need watch out for. Get the current update of AVG, get the latest Windows updates, and then scan the files while they are on CD (i.e. before you start copying them to your hard drive).
M.
p.s. Regarding the mouse, I will say that I am a cautious man when it comes to advice. I don't want anyone to go in the wrong direction because of something I said.
adityamahesh said this in post #65 : Devildog, if it has nothing on it and it looks the way you first bought it (the settings and everything I mean), then I suppose everything has been erased. No way for a virus to hide?
As for the programs, if you are going to install them from CDs, I don't think there would be any viruses hidinig there. It is most unlikely, especially if they are very factory made CDs and well known and reliable programs.
I know that the programs I will be installing will be clean, I was just wondering if a virus can survive that restore I just did, in some hidden folder or whatever?
p.s. Regarding the mouse, I will say that I am a cautious man when it comes to advice. I don't want anyone to go in the wrong direction because of something I said.
I hear ya. I hold no one here accountable for the advice they give. I ultimately make the decision. I am just thankful for you guys.
Yes. If everything has been restored using the restore CD, I am quite certain that there is no way for a virus to hide -- unless the restore CD did not format your hard drive, which it should have. Viri are just programs, which are ultimately bits stored on your hard disk. If the hard disk has been formatted, no high level application or data survives, unless the virus has somehow gathered access to your ROM -- which is quite impossible in my opinion.
devildog said this in post #56 : In the beginning it warned that everything would be lost. I'm not sure if it used the word reformatting. I did restart it with the restore disc inserted. It just walked it through. It poped up a box eventually that said symatec(?) Ghost as someone suggested using. I guess it is installed already(ghost). It was too fast obviously to "clean" the system.
Okay, I just re-read this post again. Does that program come with the HP cd? If no, then your hard disk may not have been formatted, just all your data removed and the settings of the OS restored to original. Sorry for the misleading post above.
I do not know what to say at this point. I want to hear Larke's and Ron's opinion.
sorry i haven't responded any today devildog. i've been sick for the past 2 weeks. and today has not been a good day.
i didn't even consider an IRQ problem with the mouse. like ron said, it's less than 10 bucks to try a new mouse. have you added any hardware to your computer since you got it? is the mouse the original one that came with the system?
if your windows xp firewall is enabled you'll see "alg.exe" in the processes of your taskmanager. if you use any other firewall (i love zone alarm, but that's just personal preference) then you can disable the windows firewall. it's pretty much useless anyway. yeah, it's better than nothing, but it doesn't really do anything except make intrusions a little harder. if something is on your system calling out, the windows firewall is useless. to enable/disable the windows firewall, go to control panel then click on 'network connections'. right click on your connection and there will be an 'advanced' tab. click on that an you can enable/disable the firewall. this is a per connection setting so if you have a modem connection and a LAN connection you will have to enable/disable them separately.
if it ran ghost without any user intervention on your part and now all is back to the way it was when you first got it, then you have a clean install image. i use ghost and it's not like windows restore. windows restore modifies your install to revert it to a previous state, ghost overwrites the entire partition with whatever image you are restoring. so there should have been no problems after ghost restored your image. this whole thing is very strange.
and i mentioned this in another post but i couldn't remember specifics and since you've already reinstalled this isn't really going to help you, but just the same. in the future you can right click (in XP) your C:\documents and settings folder and click "search" and do a search for "outlook express" and it will bring up the program icon as well as a folder. the folder contains all your outlook express folders in a data file format. you can't read your mail straight from this folder because all the mail in each folder is stored in here as a single file that can only be managed through outlook express. now, for your address book. again, do a search on your "C:\documents and settings" folder and search for "*.wab" and it will bring up all your Windows Address Book files. you can actually double click these to see what's in them. sorry i didn't tell you all this before your restore. i hope you didn't lose much.
Larke2000 said this in post #72 : if your windows xp firewall is enabled you'll see "alg.exe" in the processes of your taskmanager. if you use any other firewall (i love zone alarm, but that's just personal preference) then you can disable the windows firewall. it's pretty much useless anyway. yeah, it's better than nothing, but it doesn't really do anything except make intrusions a little harder. if something is on your system calling out, the windows firewall is useless. to enable/disable the windows firewall, go to control panel then click on 'network connections'. right click on your connection and there will be an 'advanced' tab. click on that an you can enable/disable the firewall. this is a per connection setting so if you have a modem connection and a LAN connection you will have to enable/disable them separately.
That is true. Windows firewall doesn't check for your local programs accessing different ports. Zone Alarm is better in that respect, since it checks for both incoming and outgoing connections.
That seems to have done the trick. Thanks guys. I can't believe the mouse did this! It still "flickers" so i'm not convinced yet. Now comes the new problem. I backed up on to cd's. I used a few cds. Some work, some don't. There are two( the most important) that don't seem to be picked up by the drive. The writting process seemed to go fine and it looks as if if burned something onto the discs. I try to "see" it by going to my computer. I've tried start-run-d:/. Nothing seems to work. The other two discs( burned at the same time and with the same media) are recognized without me doing anything. Just insert them, and a box pops up with choices. Any ideas??
Yes, I am using the same drive. Is that a problem? It seems to be able to read the other back-up disks. 4 total back ups. 2 work, 2 don't. There is no error message. It doesn't see it. If forced, it just says insert a disk into drive d. Thanks again Ron for figuring out the mouse deal. It jumps about 8-9 inches from time to time still so I'm not sure about being 100%. It most certainly IS better though.
No, sometimes when you make a cd on one drive and try and read it on another the other drive can't read the CD's. In this case it kind of sounds like the CD's weren't finalized. I would have to do a search to see if there is some software that can read it. Also there are companies that can mine the data off but they are quite expensive.
devildog: walk us through the process (step by step as much as you can remember) by which you made the cd's. another thing to try is to go back into your msconfig and get rid of all the hp stuff starting up. i had a buddy who has a dell, and when all the 'dell' junk starts up, he can only read cd's 50% of the time. when he disables it, he has complete cd access. don't know if this will apply to you, but it's worth a shot.
Larke, I just opened up the d drive in a small window. I then, explored "my computer" and chose the files from there. I used the drag and drop method. Everything seemed to be transferring fine. One option given was to write these files to a disk. I used it. Then a pop up window in the bottom left said "you have files to be written" and I did that. After dumping some files off because there wasn't room on the disk, I burned the files. It seemed to work fine. It said it was finished and that was that. Should I go to a friends house and see if their computer can read it?
Two other issues. The mouse jumps from time to time. It will be somewhat centered and when I try to move it, it will be in a different location. Doesn't "freak out" like it did before though. And it only does it once every hour or so. Not huge but worry-some after my last ordeal.
The other is: When putting some files back on the computer, I would double click the folder and it went to an empty folder that said "search this folder". After a mental battle, I would right click the folder and I used the "open" option. This would open the folder and display the contents. I figure it must be a folder option. Yes? Is it going to be just those folders or will every folder from now on need to be opened by right clicking it?
Oh hell, I just thought of another snag. I keep a "new text document" on my desktop for fast saving purposes of text material. When I try to open it, it tells me that " we cannot find windows notepad". Shouldn't that be in the re-install? Is it in the "install windows components" section? Thanks again for all the help
devildog: i'd say it's definitely worth a shot to see if a friend's drive can read the disc. from what you've told us, i can't see where it was anything that you did that caused the problem. you didn't happen to verify all the discs in your drive after you burned them did you? i mean did you make sure you could read the data off of all the discs before you went on to the next disc? if you did then there's a good chance that you can recover whatever is on them. if you didn't then there's still a chance but i'm VERY sorry that i didn't mention it to you to verify that you could read the discs after burning them. especially if you weren't familiar with burning cd's. that was a major faux pas on my part and i'm sorry.
mouse issue: make sure you have the latest driver for your mouse. also, depending on what's running in the background, if there's something sucking up a lot of your processing power at the moment you try to move your mouse you will experience this sort of 'jumping' effect. be sure and do the little 'msconfig' tweak to get rid of some of your startup items that may be taxing your processor to do mindless tasks.
the folder thing: is this only when accessing files off of the cd you burned? or when you open any folder on your computer?
for notepad: right click on your desktop and go to "new". select 'shortcut'. in the path type "c:/windows/system32/notepad" (without quotes) then click next. name it whatever you'd like and then hit 'finish' and it will place a shortcut to notepad on your desktop.
Yes I did, Ron. Thanks for the advice. It is better than it was. And no, it isn't a laptop.
When I open "my documents", it opens fine. It displays the contents. But when I try to open one of the folders contained within( and any folder I create), it goes to that search mode. It's like right clicking the mouse and selecting search. Hopefully this is only a settings issue.
On one of the other issues, I am able to use "rich text document", just not able to use the regular text document when I right click on the desktop.
I am noticing that the pointer "vibrates" from time to time. Its like it is doing it instead of "freaking out" like it use to do. It has a small but noticable vibration to it for about the same time period as it use to "freak out", and then it goes back to normal. Jumping around periodically also. Man this sucks.
Larke2000 said this in post #82 : devildog: i'd say it's definitely worth a shot to see if a friend's drive can read the disc. from what you've told us, i can't see where it was anything that you did that caused the problem. you didn't happen to verify all the discs in your drive after you burned them did you? i mean did you make sure you could read the data off of all the discs before you went on to the next disc? if you did then there's a good chance that you can recover whatever is on them. if you didn't then there's still a chance but i'm VERY sorry that i didn't mention it to you to verify that you could read the discs after burning them. especially if you weren't familiar with burning cd's. that was a major faux pas on my part and i'm sorry.
I usually do this but of coarse this is the one time I didn't. I had several to burn so I guess I forgot about it. I have a dvd burner so I am fairly acquainted with burning disks. I knew about confirming the burn and it is my fault entirely.
mouse issue: make sure you have the latest driver for your mouse. also, depending on what's running in the background, if there's something sucking up a lot of your processing power at the moment you try to move your mouse you will experience this sort of 'jumping' effect. be sure and do the little 'msconfig' tweak to get rid of some of your startup items that may be taxing your processor to do mindless tasks.
I just plugged it in and went to town. I didn't know about fetching drivers for it. It has like a laser under it instead of the ball. It has to be an improvement. I did notice however, that when I turned the PC off last night, the laser stayed on. ???
the folder thing: is this only when accessing files off of the cd you burned? or when you open any folder on your computer?
Any folder I create. Say I right click on the desktop and create a folder. Well the only way to open it is to right click it and select open.
for notepad: right click on your desktop and go to "new". select 'shortcut'. in the path type "c:/windows/system32/notepad" (without quotes) then click next. name it whatever you'd like and then hit 'finish' and it will place a shortcut to notepad on your desktop.
My notepad seems to be fine. I can go to start,programs, accessories,notepad(i think) and it works fine. It is when I try to right click on the desktop and create a text document. It create it on the desktop but you can't open it. I can create a "rich text document", however. Weird. When I try to open it now, instead of saying it can't find word pad, it says C:\documents and settings\shane\desktop\new text document is not a valid win32 application.
yes, even though windows picked it right up you should still go online and try and find the latest drivers. if you shutdown or hibernate the mouse should turn off completely. in standby mode the mouse may still be on.
ok. now i understand what you were getting at with the 'new text document' request. okay. this one is really easy. download tweak ui for XP SP1 or higher right click 'my computer' and go to properties. under the system summary it will tell you if you have SP1 (service pack 1) installed. if not then get this one here and follow the onscreen install instructions.
ok. after tweak ui is installed, open it. go to 'templates'. select "create" and then it will open up a little window. browse until you find a '.txt' file and click on it to highlight it. click "open" in the program and BAM!, you've got a 'create new text document' right click shortcut.
i still need a little time to sort out your "open" problem, though.
ok, this next little bit is at your own risk. it's not really that bad, but if you slip and click the wrong thing, you'll be in the registry and i'm not even sure which registry keys you'll have to edit. so basically i'm telling you to not do something that i accidentally did a few weeks ago. took me hours to undo, so just be careful. if you just LOOK and don't CLICK on ANYTHING but what i tell you, you'll be fine.
ok. go to your control panel and click on 'folder options'. then go to the 'file types' tab. near the top, but you will probably still have to scroll a little, you will see "file folder" and "folder". now this is where i want you to be careful. if you accidentally change your "default" behaviour there is no simple way to "undefault" it. you will have to go into the registry. and like i said, it will take me quite a while to figure out which keys you will have to edit. that being said, if for some reason the defaults have already been changed then no problem, we'll get you fixed up in no time. ok. here's what i want you to do now:
1. highlight 'file folder', go down and click on the 'advanced' button and then move your mouse to the far corner of the screen and take your hand off of it. ok, just look under the 'actions' and take note of what's there and if any are in BOLD or not. then sloooowly put your hand back on your mouse and move to the 'cancel' button and click it. then repeat the entire process for the 'folder' (should be right under 'file folder'). after i know the status of these i can help you more. hopefully. actually, i'm kind of hoping something is kuwabara'd in there, because i will at least have a good starting point.
Larke2000 said this in post #85 : ok. now i understand what you were getting at with the 'new text document' request. okay. this one is really easy. download tweak ui for XP SP1 or higher right click 'my computer' and go to properties. under the system summary it will tell you if you have SP1 (service pack 1) installed. if not then get this one here and follow the onscreen install instructions.
I just tried this and it says " the procedure entry point getdlldirectoryw could not be located in the dynamic link library kernel32.dll. Is this even english? Thanks for your post Larke.
Larke2000 said this in post #86 : ok, this next little bit is at your own risk. it's not really that bad, but if you slip and click the wrong thing, you'll be in the registry and i'm not even sure which registry keys you'll have to edit. so basically i'm telling you to not do something that i accidentally did a few weeks ago. took me hours to undo, so just be careful. if you just LOOK and don't CLICK on ANYTHING but what i tell you, you'll be fine.
ok. go to your control panel and click on 'folder options'. then go to the 'file types' tab. near the top, but you will probably still have to scroll a little, you will see "file folder" and "folder". now this is where i want you to be careful. if you accidentally change your "default" behaviour there is no simple way to "undefault" it. you will have to go into the registry. and like i said, it will take me quite a while to figure out which keys you will have to edit. that being said, if for some reason the defaults have already been changed then no problem, we'll get you fixed up in no time. ok. here's what i want you to do now:
1. highlight 'file folder', go down and click on the 'advanced' button and then move your mouse to the far corner of the screen and take your hand off of it. ok, just look under the 'actions' and take note of what's there and if any are in BOLD or not. then sloooowly put your hand back on your mouse and move to the 'cancel' button and click it. then repeat the entire process for the 'folder' (should be right under 'file folder'). after i know the status of these i can help you more. hopefully. actually, i'm kind of hoping something is kuwabara'd in there, because i will at least have a good starting point.
File folder just had "find" under actions. I don't think it is bold.
Folder options has "explore" and "open" under actions. Neither is bold.
I just tried this and it says " the procedure entry point getdlldirectoryw could not be located in the dynamic link library kernel32.dll. Is this even english? Thanks for your post Larke.
While you're at it, throw some brain at this. All of a sudden I now have on my desktop "msopt.dll". I do not know how it got there and I know I shouldn't delete dll files. This happened the first time I restored the computer also. I deleted it and it made something( I forget) not work properly. I then restored the computer again. Now it is back and I want to know what it is and where it belongs. I will try that download link in a few. Thanks
i can't think of ANY reason why a .dll would be on your desktop. unless, for some reason, there is an actual program (instead of a shortcut to a program) on your desktop. you open windows explorer to check. go to "c:\windows\documents and settings" and then you should see a folder named after whatever your login name is (the name at the top of the menu when you click on the start button). click on that folder and there is the contents of your desktop. go up to 'view' and click on 'details'. this will show you if the icons on your desktop are 'shortcuts' or 'applications'. if any show up as applications, it could be the one tied to the .dll file. if you do have a program on your desktop, tell me the name and i can figure out if the .dll is tied to it or not. if you can't remember what program acted up after you deleted it last time, just move it to somewhere where you can easily find it until you run across the program that it belongs to, then i can help you more. i can tell you that (to the best of my ability) i believe it is tied to what's called a 'browser helper object'. it could be benign (well, benign in that it could be 'helpful' crap that came with the computer. useless bells and whistles that name brand computer love to load your computer with.) or it could the an indication of more malicious spyware. i tend to lean toward the former since it was there after a restore, but there is no way to be 100% sure without knowing what program is tied to it. either way, i can't imagine it's a part of a vital system operation. i wouldn't delete it. just move it until you discover what program it belongs to. if you move it, then whatever program that requires it shouldn't be able to run because it will be looking on the desktop for it. if it makes you feel better, move it and rename the extension to .bak or something.
I restored(just the basic type) to a different date and it removed the dll. Yeah! Thanks for the advice. I am saving these posts for the future. Have you figured out how to open my folders with a double click. Now it just goes into the "seach" mode as I described. The only way to effectively open one is to right click it and then select open(it is the second choice down). Thanks Larke
now browse to "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell" with 'shell' highlighted in the left pane, go to the right pane and right click on "(default)" and select "modify". in the "value data" type "none". now, log off and log back on and see if that fixed it. if the value was already "none" then it's back to the drawing board.
I didn't really feel like starting a new thread (due to laziness) and figured I shall just attach it to this because it involves me needing computer help.
I will be using my mouse and all of the sudden my cursor just starts to drift away real slowly and I wouldn’t even be moving the mouse. Any ideas why?
Is this a new mouse? What type of mouse is it? Ball or Optical? Did you have to load drivers or did windows find the mouse on it's own? Oh and what version of windows do you have?
I have a ball mouse and the x/y axis roller always gets full of gunk that I have to scrape off. I do game so I assume that the heavy usage of my mouse is the problem, I intend to get an optical mouse soon. I use Windows XP Professional.
Ok it can have a ball and still have optics. A lot of logitech mice and trackball's have speckled balls and have optics that sense the movement of the ball.
First make sure it's clean inside, a Q-Tip and some Alcohol (computer off) may help.
Then before replacing the mouse, remove the mouse via device manager, then reboot and let windows find the mouse again. Right click (if you are right handed) on my computer, click hardware, then click device manager. You should see an entry for mice and other pointing devices. (your's may be a little different because I'm on win2kpro. Click the + sign and you should see an installed mouse. Just highlight it, right click and click uninstall. Now reboot. When windows comes up it will say that "Windows has found new hardware" and ask if you want to install drivers. Click yes or ok or install whatever it says. Windows will install a generic mouse driver and it should work ok. If it does not then it's time to replace it.
After I uninstalled it, I got a little message asking if I was sure. I clicked 'yes' and then my computer automatically rebooted. After windows loaded I just had an hour glass for a minute or so and I never got a message to install a new driver. So I went back to 'mice and other pointing devices' and another one replaced the previous. So I’m guessing it was done automatically. If that’s all I had to do, well, then thank you for the help.
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if you do decide to backup/ restore, we'll find a good shareware backup program for you to use.]
