Unable to open windows components.........help please PH'ers

[mr noble]

HI,

I have been following a feature in a computer mag I have to clean up my PC as its been very slow lately.

I got spybot and it found about 30 things. I run AVG free 7.0... and it updates daily. Rarely have problems.



But I can't open the "add/remove windows components" page in "add/remove programs" on the control pannel.

I just get the message "setup was unable to open startoc.inf file"

and an error code underneath.


I have googled for the startoc.inf file name and have come up with little that helps.

Can anyone help me to get into the page so I can disable index servicing as my mag suggests.



Many thanks for any help offered.

Greg

[toni896]

who are you logged on as, maybe just a permissions thing,

what operating sys is it ? XP/W2k, Win98 ?

assuming it's Xp and you have admin rights, try running "services.msc" will give you access to services to disable processes.

[mr noble]

Thanks Toni,

I'm using XP and did manage to achieve the aim to switch the indexing service to manual. Thank you for that!


I ran spybot and a full virus scan in safe mode earlier and then tried to get into "add/remove components" again whilst in safe mode but the same error message still came up.


I have also found websites seem to take ages to load up lately. Some sites are fine like PH and hotmail, but other random ones take 4 mins+ to get "done"

Thanks for your help.

Greg

[aranell]

I'd try downloading and running Lavasoft's Adaware too...Spybot never seems to pick up everything for me.

What's the error code that's given when the error message appears?
Are you getting anything logged in your event viewer logs (application and system)? (right click on 'my computer' and click on 'manage')

[mr noble]

The "specific error code is 0x2 at line 2088999592"

Contact your administrator.

I guess that'll be me!

I'll give the lavasoft one a go too.

Is it best to run them in safe mode or just normally?

Greg

[toni896]

worth running adware just incase, but also run something liek HyjackThis to check if something is running thats not shown up. browser hyjack or something.

[toni896]

google suggests the installer is still running some how might be also worht trying
the microsft uninstaller cleanup prog
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=2903

[mr noble]

And the fun goes on!!

Downloaded and installed adaware from lavasoft site.

It opens and says that the database is 626 days old and "would you like to update it now"

I hit "yes"

It loads for 2 seconds and then says "error retrieving update" and shuts down.

What a way to waste a day in your life huh!

any

Greg