programs not responding

[alin2]

Hi !

I have a problem with my Windows XP Professional. From time to time all open programs became unusable (not responding status). I can move, however, the mouse icon. The start button is also not responding to get a restart from there. Then I am opening Windows Task Manager with Ctrl-Alt-Del and by simply clicking on it twice every program became again usable. It is also strange that, for a period, I even cannot move my icons from the desktop (they go immediately back to their original position).
Moreover, from time to time, when starting computer and trying to click my icon/photo to login this icon is not active (so it does not responding to the mouse click). So I have to use Ctrl-Alt-Del again to enter.
I have McAfee Security Center and I have used other methods to check and I believe that I do not have a virus. The computer is only one year old and everything is quite new (Pentium D 940, 1024 MB, HDD 300 etc).

Please help !

 

[Zoron]

McAfee IS your virus. Switch to something else. Immediately.

 

[alin2]

What do you mean ? Do you think that McAfee blocks everything ? I have the same McAfee on other computer and do not have the same problems.

 

[pat mcgroin]

Do you know if you have indexing turned on? If so try turning it off.
Indexing under XP can bring a computer to its knees for differing periods of time. It doesnt play well with others.
Im currently on vista and I cant remember exactly how to turn it off without rebooting. If you dont know write back and I will tell you.

Otherwise look in task manager to see what is running that seems not native to windows. Most things that you turned on will say user next to them. Possibly one of theose progs is causing the trouble.

For the boot issue do your logon icons activate after a few (up to 10) minutes? That could be a couple of different things. One could be Mcafee doing a startup scan

Look at your standby/suspend settings to be sure that they havent been changed.

There are a few more things that it could be but try those first and call back.

 

[Zoron]

I don't mean McAfee blocks everything... I mean it's a hunk of crap. While I've grown to dislike Norton, I've always hated McAfee. It's at least as much a resource hog as Norton (possibly even more so) and every computer I've worked on that had it installed immediately became more responsive once it was gone.

You'd be much better served by switching to another security suite. I personally prefer Panda... but others here will recommend Kapersky or Nod32. Almost anything will be better than McAfee.

 

[alin2]

Zoron: I saw that McAfee uses many resources. But my problems started a few weeks after I instaled McAfee, not immediately. I will consider buying another security suite if McAfee is really the reason of my problems.

pat mcgroin: Turned indexing off. No change. I have many things in the task manager, but they seem necessary or related to applications I know. The ones with higher memory usage are: firefox (37828K), svchost (26496K), MsMpEng (25052K), McShield (34832K), RTHDCPL (21112K) and explorer (34044K). As regarding the logon problem I will leave the logon screen for at least 10 minutes to see what happens (the problem appears, however, only from time to time). Everything seems strange. Why everything turns back to normal when I click twice on the upper border of the Task Manager ? And I have no idea how to identify the problem.