Computer help

[Neil]

Cheers guys, tried a few of the suggestions so far and have reaped some marked speed benefits

Unfortunately my crash problem is still there. It seems to be a problem with the explorer.exe. I would reinstall windows but it was preinstalled when I got the pc.

More ram is on the cards(currently at 1gb), reckon I could get a few years more out of the computer, not a game fiend or owt.

More RAM always seems to help, but I very much doubt it's related to explorer crashing. That could either be some troublesome software (malicious) or some bad software (that's installed / configured some things).

If things like ccleaner don't help, and you're reasonably happy that your anti-spyware and anti-virus software has done it's thing, then starting afresh may be the only way.

 

[barry2017]

If you're the kind of person that likes tinkering with computers it might be worth a play with Puppy Linux.

It requires very few system resources, and can run straight from the CD! It brings old computers to life like you would not believe.

My laptop before I bought my all-singing, all-dancing, paid-for-by-the-Open-University netbook was 11 years old, I wouldn't have felt the urge to replace it had it not been for the fact I was given a shiny new one for free.

www.puppylinux.org

Failing that, I'd download Hijack This and put a post on the Safer Networking forums. Or do a clean install of XP. Whatever you do, back up first.

And give me a shout if you get stuck.

 

[kaiser]

Right idiot question, do I need the XP disc to reboot the computer?

 

[legrandefromage]

if you are wiping the hard drive to start from scratch, yes.

 

[kaiser]

arsicles, right I'm going to investigate how to repair this one exe, Since trying all the other stuff its speeded up a fair bit. I'm just thinking it'd be a right pain to back up all my itunes and stuff. Oh and I don't have an XP disc anyway.

Take it theres no super power software out there?

Russell do you have the pctools software? Don't mind payin if its a powerful tool?

 

[perry]

Mrs had a problem with explore.exe , she " has to have it for work stuff " :roll: so ditching windose and going linux isnt an option . It was refusing to open explorer then kicking up half a dozen crappy porn sites .

Used my xubuntu IBM x31 to google "explore.exe" after looking in msconfig and turned out it was guff . Looked at the list of all startup crap so i could find where it was hiding ; of course it was hanging around in the system 32 folder . Refused to delete so cut it into a usb , stuck it in the x31 and deleted it in the comfort of linux .

While i was at it i went down the list msconfig gives ; googling anything that looks iffy ( ie anything ending in .exe ) deleted quite a few in the end .

Do as jerky suggested , copy everything you want to keep ( dont forget your bookmarks ) and start over .

 

[spudgun]

Are you using zone alarm? Uninstalled this recently on my 5 year old machine and it's flying now.