Restore problem and hanging system

The last question that I posed had to do with my theme changing after rebooting. I haven't noticed a trend of when it happens but that's a minor problem compared to today's aggravation.

My computer started hanging at strange times. It always happens after the screen saver has been active. The screen's blank and when I wiggle the mouse, the screen comes back but all the programs are hung. It also happens when nothing is running, if that is ever really possible with Windows. The mouse will work but clicks don't accomplish anything. The keyboard lights usually respond but sometimes the status lights don't change when I hit num lock or caps lock, a sign that things are really ******* up.

This just started about a week ago and I had just installed and un-installed some software for a wi-fi adapter. So I thought that might have had something to do with the problem.

Hmmmm . . . so I figured that I'd restore the system to an earlier date. Launched system restore, selected a day and clicked "Next" and nothing happened. Clicked back and tried a different restore point. Still nothing. Cold booted. Tried again. Same result. Safe mode. Tried again. Same result.

Any thoughts? I really don't want to have to reinstall windows, I have better things to do with an entire evening.

Brings to mind a problem that happened with my son's computer, a Dell XPS running Win XP SP3. He's had the computer about 18 months and never had a problem. Recently his internet connection started acting screwy so I suggest that he roll back the clock to an earlier date. This was on Jan 1 but there were no restore points from any earlier dates. Strange? The solution was to re-install windows.

So, back to my problem. Any thoughts yet?

Thanks.

 

My screen save is the standard Windows one. When I left for work today, I turned off the screen saver and the system was hung when I came home. So I guess that it isn't the screen saver.

I'll try the Scannow, see if that changes anything.

Gotta love it!

 

Okay, now a new problem. I ran sfc /scannow and it asked for the Windows XP installation disk so I popped it into my DVD drive. sfc just keeps telling me that I need the windows disk. If I put the disk into my CD drive, sfc tells me that that it is the wrong disk.

The disk is genuine Microsoft that I bought from Tiger Direct when I built the computer. It is SP2 and updates have turned the installed system into SP3 if that makes a difference.

Loving it more everyday.

 

Argh! I did the steps to recover "System Restore" but now I don't have any restore points.

 

This is getting weird. The hanging isn't really freezing. Last night I was watching a movie and it played completely but then Media Player wasn't responding. While attempting to type this reply, I wanted to use Bookshelf to check the spelling of a word (I can never remember how to spell "weird ") and things locked up but the music playing in the background stayed playing. Reboot and tried the same things and the same thing happened.

So what did I do? I rebooted in safe mode and started deleting programs. I rolled back Media Player. I removed BitTorrent. Burning Nero. DivX. QuickTime. And a few other things.

I reinstalled DivX but so far nothing has caused me problems. Yet.

You had asked for a list of installed programs, is there an easy way to generate the list or do I have to type it in?

 

In Control Panel -> Power Options, set Turn off hard disks to Never and System standby to Never. Try that.

 

I think that my computer is on to me . . . every time I tried to get a list of installed programs, it would freeze up.

I tried what Mattman said and turned off screen savers and power management but that didn't help at all.

Thought maybe it was overheating because the problems started after I put the cover back on the computer after having been open for a year. Still happens.

I've uninstalled a bunch of programs like Bit Torrent and the Bit Torrent DNA program.

The programs that start at boot are
Microsoft Bookshelf
ePrompter
Norton Anti-Virus
MS Windows Defender
Realteck AC97 Contorl Panel
Nvidia Wizard
QuickTime (Don't know why that needs to start at boot)


List of programs from control panel
Adobe Flash Player ActiveX
Adobe Flash Player Plugin
Adober Reader 7.1.0
Apple Software Update (Don't know where that came from)
Click'n Design (from CD Stomper)
DivX Codec
ePrompter (system tray mail client)
Epson Printer Software
Eudora 7.2
Google Earth
HP PrescisionScan Software
j2 Messenger (fax software)
J2SE Runtime (Java)
Java 6 Update 7
LimeWire 4.18.8
LiveReg (Symantec)
LiveUpdate 1.8 (Symantec)
Medieval CUE Splitter
Monkey's Audio
Norton Anti_Virus 2003
Norton WMI Update
NVIDIA Drivers
Ogg Codecs 0.81.15562
OpenOffice.org Installer 1.0
Opera 9.63
Paint Shop Pro 6.02
PDF Professional 2 (PDF Creator)
Quick Time
Realtek AC'97 Audio
Spesoft Audio Converter 1.30
WavePad
Yahoo Install Manager
Yahoo Widgets

Thanks. It strikes me that after all this fussing, it may have been simpler to re-install Windows.

 

I had wondered about Lime Wire and Bit Torrent but I figured that since I'm only downloading MP3 files, there wouldn't be any danger. Or has someone figured out how to mess with MP3s and stick viruses into them?

Thanks for the heads up about Adobe Reader. It looks like I'm two versions behind the times.