My home laptop crapped out last week with some weird software related issue, I'm not sure what to do so here's the details: I was running an audio file back on windows media player last week when all of a sudden everything froze up. The only thing I could do was reset the thing, so I did. (I use windows XP home, btw) When it came back on though, something was seriously messed up. Most programs won't run at all. I'll open them and the hour glass appears but then nothing happens. Task manager shows the processes as running but that's it. Now a few programs do still run, though very slowly. I'm able to run my bittorrent program (and it still uploads & downloads) and I was able to run adaware, I ran msconfig and I defragmented the drive, and I can get to command prompt. THey run really slow though, and occassionally if you run too many it freezes up and gives me the "not responding" Also, only about half the icons on my desktop load up now, the rest load up with the generic "windows screen" icon for some strange reason. Everything else won't run though. Internet exploerer won't run, Norton antivirus won't run, and pretty much every other application won't run. I even tried to reinstall windows xp from the CD but that froze up in the middle. I'm pretty much o ut of ideas at this point and am thinking about reformattting and starting over. Anybody have any advice?
You might be able to restore from a previous point using that System Restore feature in XP. I've never needed to do it, so I can't say how good (or not good) it is. I'd format and reinstall though. I think it's a good idea to do that with Windows from time to time . . .
You are not going to like what I am going to say but I would re-format. I have had to do it twice and both times was because I was having the same types of problems - freezing up, Explorer getting tons of error messages, computer just running real slow, etc. Once you re-format, I would look into using Mozilla or something else as your browser instead of sh!tty IE.
Download tuneup utilities software. This software will do a system and registry check. It will fix errors and make your system run smoother. You can find it at cnet.com download section. Its called Tuneup utilities 2004. My system was very sluggish and it fixed all my problems. http://download.com.com/3000-2086-10280149.html?tag=lst-0-1
I'd try System Restore prior to reformatting (personal preference). It has always worked great for me and only takes 5-10 minutes.
I wish I could, but that's one of the programs that won't run. It's weird, it seems like all of the useless programs (word, shareaza, others) will run, but the useful programs (IE for downloading fixes, Spybot and Norton Antivirus to see if there's a problem, and System Restore, won't run.
Do you have the Windows XP install CD? If so, you should be able to use system restore from it outside of WIndows. Essentially, you boot up from that CD and follow the directions.
I do. How do I get it to boot up from the CD and not the hard drive? I tried it once just by leaving it in the drive when I started it but nothing happened.
Did you try booting your computer in safe mode and then trying to run System Restore? I think that should probably work.
If you have tried to boot from the CD and it would not let you...you will have to change the boot order settings in the BIOS setup utility(CMOS). When you boot...look for a screen at the beginning that will have something about "To Enter setup. press <some key>" or something to that effect. the only problem with that solution is that you can not run system restore form the recovery console... you need to boot to safe mode to run it... here is the directions... http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=304449
Thanks guys I will try this stuff. I must say this is a hundred times more useful than posting this message over on the MS boards/newsgroups. I swear to god, I posted this exact same message and I got only one response that was like "update your virus definitions!" ......big help that was...
