Program takes ages to load
Discussion
Can anyone shed some light on this rather strange thing that has started happening today?
I went surfing around some dodgy hacker type sights today and set up for a battle against my internet security. I needed to get a product key for a program I was loading, as the one I had with the original software wasn't being accepted!
Anyway, the website loaded up some spyware on my machine, inlcuding a Trojan. I went through all the ad/spyware removers I have on my machine and they still didn't touch all of it. Some programs had appeared on my C drive, that had uninstall programs with them, so used them. (e.g. "webrebates.exe" was one of them). Eventually downloaded the trial "Spy Sweeper" that Bon Ami Mate recommended on here, and it cleaned 54 files off (that had >1000 references).
Now, being the workaholic type, I was writing a report in Word, and went to open my Oxford English Dictionary program. It refused to load and I got error messages. So, tried to reload it, and it didn't want to do that either. All references to it had disappeared in the Add/Remove Programs list in Control Panel, but I could still get to it through the root drive, so I just hoofed into the Recylcer and tried to load up from CD again. Still no joy.
Did some trawling on the web, and the software manufacturers own website said that it can be a problem seen when using Windows XP -- so try to load it up in Safe Mode. Did this, and loaded up first time. Then rebooted to find the program back where it belongs, BUT...
When I open this program, it now takes 45 seconds to load up!!!!! I can look words up in a paper dictionary faster than that! If I get inpatient and try to close it down before it has finished loading up, I get all sorts of messages I don't understand about the 16 bit subsystem may have become unstable (WTF?).
So, can anyone explain why, after removing spyware, a program should stop working, but even after I have reloaded it from scratch, it takes an eternity to access? Things like this really tee me off with computers!
I went surfing around some dodgy hacker type sights today and set up for a battle against my internet security. I needed to get a product key for a program I was loading, as the one I had with the original software wasn't being accepted!
Anyway, the website loaded up some spyware on my machine, inlcuding a Trojan. I went through all the ad/spyware removers I have on my machine and they still didn't touch all of it. Some programs had appeared on my C drive, that had uninstall programs with them, so used them. (e.g. "webrebates.exe" was one of them). Eventually downloaded the trial "Spy Sweeper" that Bon Ami Mate recommended on here, and it cleaned 54 files off (that had >1000 references).
Now, being the workaholic type, I was writing a report in Word, and went to open my Oxford English Dictionary program. It refused to load and I got error messages. So, tried to reload it, and it didn't want to do that either. All references to it had disappeared in the Add/Remove Programs list in Control Panel, but I could still get to it through the root drive, so I just hoofed into the Recylcer and tried to load up from CD again. Still no joy.
Did some trawling on the web, and the software manufacturers own website said that it can be a problem seen when using Windows XP -- so try to load it up in Safe Mode. Did this, and loaded up first time. Then rebooted to find the program back where it belongs, BUT...
When I open this program, it now takes 45 seconds to load up!!!!! I can look words up in a paper dictionary faster than that! If I get inpatient and try to close it down before it has finished loading up, I get all sorts of messages I don't understand about the 16 bit subsystem may have become unstable (WTF?).
So, can anyone explain why, after removing spyware, a program should stop working, but even after I have reloaded it from scratch, it takes an eternity to access? Things like this really tee me off with computers!
Computer not made by TVR is it Bryan 
When I had similar madness on my computer the only way I could coax it back into doing something useful was to reformat & rebuild.
If youve got your original install disks, it might be quicker in the long run.
Sorry I couldn't be of more help.
>> Edited by admoss on Monday 6th December 19:13
When I had similar madness on my computer the only way I could coax it back into doing something useful was to reformat & rebuild.
If youve got your original install disks, it might be quicker in the long run.
Sorry I couldn't be of more help.
>> Edited by admoss on Monday 6th December 19:13
Which is the programme that takes an age to load?
Could be that some of the spyware has messed up winsock if it's an MS programme trying to access the net in the background. It's not uncommon. How's your browsing performance?
A lot of this stuff is a swine to remove and takes a bit of nouse to shift. If you have a recent restore point, that might be your quickest bet without getting all techincal on it!
Could be that some of the spyware has messed up winsock if it's an MS programme trying to access the net in the background. It's not uncommon. How's your browsing performance?
A lot of this stuff is a swine to remove and takes a bit of nouse to shift. If you have a recent restore point, that might be your quickest bet without getting all techincal on it!
Well, I seem to have sorted it. I had a very tricky bit of Spy Ware that operates across at least 4 files and manages to keep renaming itself whenever one of them gets deleted! This little bit of crap goes under the name of "Sandboxer" and on a scale of 1-10, 10 being a total bastard to remove, it scores a very unhealthy 11.
Had to do some hacking about in the registry following some tips off google - which could not be followed exactly to the letter. However, it seems to have killed this little sod off. None of the Anti-spyware programs I have could kill it off!
Consequently, my dictionary programs launches in about 1 second now, instead of 45. This crap must get into memory when it tries to keep launching Internet Explorer all the while to take me to rubbishy websites for credit cards and the like. Hopefully, I've nailed it and won't have to a reformat and install. Phew!
Had to do some hacking about in the registry following some tips off google - which could not be followed exactly to the letter. However, it seems to have killed this little sod off. None of the Anti-spyware programs I have could kill it off!
Consequently, my dictionary programs launches in about 1 second now, instead of 45. This crap must get into memory when it tries to keep launching Internet Explorer all the while to take me to rubbishy websites for credit cards and the like. Hopefully, I've nailed it and won't have to a reformat and install. Phew!
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff