[Syncmaster75]

Before the repair install I was running SP3 and everything was up to date up to the point of Microsoft withdrawing support. I don't routinely update drivers; only when they used to come up in windows update or service packs. I've never really had any malware or virus issues and have always run 3rd party firewall and anti-virus software as well as stand-alone scanners for malware, rootkits etc - only 1 program at realtime protection to avoid conflicts. The pc is a Dell 4600i but the hard drives and CD / DVD drives have all been replaced due to failures of the original kit; the BIOS has also been re-flashed to upgrade from A10 to A12 (this was years before any of the recent issues).

 

I'll have a look at the Dell site and also the manufacturers sites for the replacement hardware to see if I can find the motherboard and other drivers and try to reinstall them to see if this improves the performance. I don't think the Dell folder contains the files needed to rebuild the utility partition but I'll have a look - to be honest I've never really gone through what is actually in there. The utilities partition does come up as a valid boot option when I hit F12 on startup.

 

I've made a full drive image which is stored on the backup HDD - do you think that it might be beneficial to delete out the autorun entries that refer to missing files one by one to assess the performance afterward? if it all goes wrong I can use the image to restore back to the current state, so I won't lose anything except a bit of time...

 

I'll have to think about the clean re-install of XP - it might come down to whether the Dell folder does have a way of recreating this partition or perhaps if I can find freeware to replace the utilities themselves. Memtest86 probably does a better job on the RAM than the Dell tests anyway so I'll have a look at the rest of the utilities to see how much I want to keep them.

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Hi,
 
I suspect I know the reason why Autoruns is reporting so many missing files, can you please download my script CheckPath and save it to the Desktop.
Execute the script and it will open notepad showing a log please copy & paste the contents of the log to your topic.

[SleepyDude]

Hi,
 
I suspect I know the reason why Autoruns is reporting so many missing files, can you please download my script CheckPath and save it to the Desktop.
Execute the script and it will open notepad showing a log please copy & paste the contents of the log to your topic.

[Syncmaster75]

I think you may have found the problem - guess the last two registry keys in this log should be there!

 

 CheckPath.txt   1.91KB   223 downloads

[SleepyDude]

Hi,
 

Yep the PATH definition is missing, let's fix that by setting the path to the minimum value needed by windows.

• click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System -> Advanced
• Click on Environment Variables, under System Variables, find PATH and select it then click the Edit button.
• In the Edit window, modify the PATH variable value to the following:

%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem

• If you do not have the item PATH, you may select to add a new variable named PATH and set to the value above.
• Close the window
• Restart the system
• Generate a new log using Autoruns

[Syncmaster75]

Hi,

 

The PATH variable was indeed missing, so I created a new one with the value you gave above. I've re-run autoruns and also your checkpath script; results posted below:

 

 AutoRuns2.txt   41.35KB   267 downloads

 

 CheckPath.txt   1.96KB   212 downloads

 

The first registry key is now working but the last one for current user environment is still broken, does this need fixing too?

 

Thanks for your help.

[SleepyDude]

Hi,
 
The PATH variable was indeed missing, so I created a new one with the value you gave above. I've re-run autoruns and also your checkpath script; results posted below:

 

Good job.

 

The first registry key is now working but the last one for current user environment is still broken, does this need fixing too?

 

It's ok, the first key is the important one because it's the variable defined at the System level the second one is specific for the user and optional.

 

Any change on the system behavior?

 

I would like to see if the system is recording any errors on the Event Viewer and some critical services...

 

 

Minitoolbox log

Download MiniToolBox and save the file to the Desktop.
Close the browser and run the tool, check the following options:

• Report IE Proxy Settings
• Report FF Proxy Settings
• List content of Hosts
• List last 10 Event Viewer log
• List Installed Programs
• List Devices (select Only Problems)
• List Users, Partitions and Memory size
• List Minidump Files
• List Restore Points

Click on Go.

Post the resulting log in your next reply.


Let's check some windows critical services...

Farbar Service Scanner (FSS)

Download Farbar Service Scanner and save the file to the Desktop.

• Run FSS
• Check all the options
• click Scan

Post the generated log in your reply.

 

[Syncmaster75]

The computer does seem to be responding more quickly than before

 

Here are the log files from those latest scans:

 Result.txt   23.16KB   381 downloads

 

 FSS.txt   2.43KB   252 downloads

 

 

[SleepyDude]

Hi,
 
It seems there are some WMI problems, let's try a fix for that because many things depend on that.

Download Windows Repair (All-in-One) Portable (use the Direct Download button)

• extract the tweaking.com_windows_repair_aio.zip to c:\Windows\TEMP the zip will extract to a folder called Tweaking.com - Windows Repair
• execute the file Repair_Windows.exe from the Tweaking.com - Windows Repair folder
• click on the tab Step 5: Backup and on the buttons:
  • Backup to create a Registry Backup
  • Create to create a System Restore Point
• click on the tab Start Repairs, next click the Open Repairs button to access the following screen:
  
  
• click the button Unselect All
• check the following box's:
  • 05 - Repair WMI
• check the box Restart/Shutdown System When Finished > Restart System
• click the Start button

 

Next,

 

Download and run the Microsoft .NET Framework Repair Tool available here.

 

After this run Minitoolbox again and generate a new log only with the option List last 10 Event Viewer log checked.

[Syncmaster75]

Ok, that took a while to fix the errors. Also after all the repairs shut down the pc to make sure settings were saved and applied to the next session - when I booted it took nearly a minute to get explorer.exe running. I could see my desktop background and I used task manager to see if explorer.exe was in the process list - it was - but the task bar and icons didn't appear for ages. Hope this doesn't happen on every boot...

 

Here's the last 10 event viewer log - looks like WMI is still having issues:

 

 Result.txt   4.12KB   325 downloads

[SleepyDude]

Hi,

 

What was the result of the Microsoft .NET Framework Repair Tool?

 

Please run the Windows Repair (All-in-One) tool again but this time check only the option 01 - Reset Registry Permissions.

[Syncmaster75]

The .net framework repair tool doesn't generate a log file; as far as I can tell it worked OK. It came up with a recommendation to repair several versions of the .net framework which I accepted; following the repairs it said to try re-installing the file I'd been having problems with (not applicable to me) and click finish if it installed correctly. The only further option was to send error logs to microsoft, but where those logs are I don't know.

 

I've re-run the windows repair tool with the reset registry permissions option ticked - the computer now boots without the pause with the desktop background visible but no icons or taskbar, in fact the boot time was pretty quick.

 

Overall system performance is pretty much back to where it used to be, webpages load rapidly under Firefox and the pagefile size responds appropriately to system demand rather than getting 'stuck' at a small value. I consider it fixed though I'm happy to run further diagnostics if you think it needs it.

 

Many thanks to everyone who helped, my pc is now running properly

[rshaffer61]

Sleepydude you are the man of the hour for sure. Good job finding and repairing the issue. That Windows Repair Tool looks interesting and I'm going to look into it for sure. Thanks for your assistance on this one. Syncmaster75 I am glad to see your issue looks to be resolved. Thanks to everyone who contributed to helping to resolve this topic.

[SleepyDude]

Hi,
 
I'm glad your computer is working better.
 
Can you post the last 10 Event Log entries like you did before.
 
One thing you can do is to remove a service StarOpen that the file is missing most likely because you uninstall the program that created the service.
 
Open the Command Prompt (Start > Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt) and type:

sc delete StarOpen

[DonnaB]

I want to thank all of you for stepping in to share your advanced knowledge. This is the best team that I have ever worked with and I am proud to say my second home is Geeks To Go! Thank you, gentlemen. Also to those who responding with advice who did not post in this thread. A true team effort with success!

@Synchmaster,

Many thanks to everyone who helped, my pc is now running properly

Glad to hear your computer is running properly. Please continue to follow SleepDudes instructions.

[Syncmaster75]

Hello again,

 

I'll post the last 10 event log entries in a day or so; at the moment the only record that has occurred since the registry permissions reset is the one about print sharing failed on the Microsoft XPS Document Writer, same entry as seen in the log file on post #39.

 

I've deleted the StarOpen service as suggested - thanks for letting me know how to get rid of it. I don't even remember the software so it's probably been there for years...

 

I've also gone through all the remaining Autoruns entries where a file was missing. If I could find the file on the HDD I copied it into the appropriate folder; if the file was completely missing I've unchecked the autorun entry (after creating a system restore point). The computer boots and runs fine, there are no errors coming up and no yellow highlighted entries on the autoruns scan that are still being loaded by default which has got to help.

 

As I said I'll update this thread when the event viewer has had a chance to gather some more relevant entries - once again thanks for all the help.