On my laptop, which I've had no problems with for years is suddenly acting up. All of a sudden, I'm unable to start basically any program. The program appears in the task manager but has <1k memory usage and 0% CPU usage. There are no visible tasks that are eating more CPU or ram than normal. Even simple programs like notepad fail to load. The system runs avast antivirus and I do occasional malewarebytes scans but no problems were detected so far. As of now, I was able to boot in safe mode and am running a full scan using malwarebytes. I was wondering what other avenues to look down when trying to fix this issue as the few similar posts I've seen are far from helpful. Any other ideas of problems that could be causing this? I'll post the results of the full MBAM scan when it is complete.
Unable to start programs unless in safe mode
- Thread starter steveg89
- Start date
John_VanKirk
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- Jan 28, 2010
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Hi Steve,
Unusual behavior like that makes one wonder about virus infection. Couple years the SirCam worm in Win-XP caused programs not to run when infected.
It modified the exe file extension association.
Might run the Microsoft Malicious Software removal tool to see that makes any difference, possibly Symantec's online antivirus scanner, and as you are doing AntiMalwareBytes.
Here is a MS KB article discussing the inability to start a program using the exe file extension, which sounds like what is occurring here.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310585
Unusual behavior like that makes one wonder about virus infection. Couple years the SirCam worm in Win-XP caused programs not to run when infected.
It modified the exe file extension association.
Might run the Microsoft Malicious Software removal tool to see that makes any difference, possibly Symantec's online antivirus scanner, and as you are doing AntiMalwareBytes.
Here is a MS KB article discussing the inability to start a program using the exe file extension, which sounds like what is occurring here.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310585
Well, it's a bit different. Programs will start... they just won't do anything. Now I'm getting a blue screen every time I get about an hour into a MBAM scan, so I'm not sure how to proceed. I'll try the malicious software removal tool and see what happens though. Perhaps it will be able to finish. Before MBAM crashed it had 2 objects detected.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15009068/Dumps.zip
This is a zip containing the errors I'm getting when trying to scan. Perhaps someone with the symbols installed can look at them and tell me what needs fixed. Perhaps a security update is have problems with an outdated driver or something. Bluescreenview is pointing to ntkrnalpa.exe.
Alright, scans have completed with nothing worth speaking of. there were some entries in mbam but they were false positives that have been there for a while. I removed them anyways, but the system is still misbehaving.
This is a zip containing the errors I'm getting when trying to scan. Perhaps someone with the symbols installed can look at them and tell me what needs fixed. Perhaps a security update is have problems with an outdated driver or something. Bluescreenview is pointing to ntkrnalpa.exe.
Alright, scans have completed with nothing worth speaking of. there were some entries in mbam but they were false positives that have been there for a while. I removed them anyways, but the system is still misbehaving.
Eh, I'd like to make that a last resort if possible. Honestly I've had problems with the laptop before and it's to the point I question whether the system is worth investing the time into. It's an old dv6700t, so it's got the extremely loud/always going fans and heat problems. I mostly use it for school/backup pc. I suppose I'll back up my files tonight and if someone doesn't have a fix from the dumps I'll just reinstall win7. I may just place an order on newegg as well.
John_VanKirk
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- Jan 28, 2010
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Hi Steve,
If you are able to get it running, might as a lost resort, download the manual instructions from Symantec for removal of the SirCam virus and see if any of it's tracks are present in the registry. If not you haven't lost anything.
Other than that, while it's summer and school's out, be much better off installing Win-7 or getting a Win-7 computer that will be stable and fresh
If you are able to get it running, might as a lost resort, download the manual instructions from Symantec for removal of the SirCam virus and see if any of it's tracks are present in the registry. If not you haven't lost anything.
Other than that, while it's summer and school's out, be much better off installing Win-7 or getting a Win-7 computer that will be stable and fresh
Yea, when I get home from work I'll check for that virus and look into reinstalling windows fresh. Luckily I'm working a decent internship and can afford a better laptop. This one was originally loaded with vista and 'upgraded' to windows 7, so perhaps some of the issue comes from that, or perhaps there's hardware failure (it's 3... maybe 4 years old now... heck, maybe more). Thank you both for the help.
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