Evil Spirits in my XP? Strange Problems

I seem to have an odd problem going on, I believe it’s related also,..when I’m in a file every few minutes the contents in the folder refreshes it’s self and starts from the top again , at the same time when this problem accurd, My IE6 will not go to any links that tries to open a new window and/or windows update will not update when the "download dialog" box comes on "¦..I tried uninstalling and reinstalling IE and replacing corrupted files in XP, but no go….maybe a setting I don’t know about?…..Don’t know…Thanks!!


Pentium 4 , 1.6MHz, WinXP Pro with SP-1, Nvidea Riva TNT2, , Maxstor 120GB, "¦â€¦if it helps to know (It Might)

 

Could be Spyware or a virus... Have you tried running either AdAware or SpyBot both of which are free programs that detect malwares on your drive.

Have you scanned the drive for a virus? There are several free on-line scans you may want to try but one stands out:

HOUSECALL http://housecall.antivirus.com/

Good luck.

 

Well.....did all 3,....nothing changed , Wondering if there is a reinstall or repair install of XP on the horizion

 

Do a few prelim things first; dump all your Temporary Internet Files and Cookies; check your pagefile settings; trim your start-up programs to a minimum; boot to safe Mode and see if the problem exixts there also; and perhaps visit PcPitstop and run their diagnostic program to detect any problems you may have.

 

Well i treid that, Still no go, HOWEVER that is a cool site (found nothing wrong) , And i'm not to certain on setting the pagefile...or where to look for it...

 

Your pagefile settings can be found by right clicking the My Computer icon > Properties > Advanced > Performance > Settings > Advanced > Change. If it's set to "System managed Size, leave it alone and cancel out of there. I doubt that is the problem since PitStop would have caught that also.

You DID delete the TIF's and Cookies right?

Try this; do a Find for the file named iconcache.db and delete all instances of it. Reboot and see if that helped.

If not; I think it's worth trying to fix IE6 again even though you said you did that already. Follow the directions here and see if the method presented works for you.

 

ok..well when i run "sfc /scannow" it runs, asks to retry a few time (for the cd-rom) finishes up then .... that's it, doesn't ask me to reboot or anything, and still does the same thing

 

That was method #1 listed on that link...Now try method #2 and if necessary the last method described in the blue box as a final eldergeek comment.

 

Ohh ...you'll love this,.....i did method 2, and go to download IE6, and during "installing Components" i get a message box with a big white "X" in a red button saying..... "the software you are installing has not passed windows logo testing to verify its compataibility with windows XP (tel me why..bla bla bla) this software will not be installed, contact your system administrator ...

 

Assuming you got a healthy download from the M$ site I can only repeat what the Eldergeek said, rather than load fix on top of fix for a really sick system, reinstalling is preferred.

 

no can do, ...i get that message all the time, it just simply won't let me install IE6

 

One other thing comes to mind...right click the My Computer icon > Properties > Advanced > Performance > Settings > and under the Visual Effects Tab, select the Custom box and then uncheck all the items except "Use drop shadows for icon labels on the Desktop.

Then click the Advanced Tab and make sure Program is selected in both areas.

OK out and see if that helped. May need reboot.

Beyond that, you'll probably want to try the Repair Console for a repair of the System or else slick it off and do a clean install (recommended).

I'm assuming all the while that using System Restore has been tried or considered and rejected. I also assume you have always been logged in with full Administrator rights.