Programs not running

[muzzyman1981]

When I click on some programs, they no longer work. The PC thinks for a second then goes on like normal without ever opening the program. I can't say exactly when it started.

I have just installed Norton recently but I'm positive the problem had started before then.

The programs that I am seeing that aren't being able to run are:

Army Builder EX
Skype

I've tried uninstalling both of these programs and reinstalling them but it has not worked. Virus scans picked up nothing major, along with SPAM scans. Also I have tried System Restore but it won't even go back to a previous point, it says "Nothing Has Been Changed". Any ideas if I may ask?

 

[aford10]

have your task manager open on the processes tab. Click the cpu column to arrange it by % used. Double click the programs and see if something is kicking off to block the program after you try to run it.

You should be in safe mode when running the system restore. That message is what usually comes up when trying to run it in normal windows.

 

[muzzyman1981]

Ok thank you. I will give those a try.

*EDIT* There are just too many things going to really tell which, if any, are stopping the programs from running.

ccSvcHst.exe seems to be the program that keeps running everytime I run those two programs with others that seem to randomly start

 

[aford10]

^ that's a normal system process, that one is fine.

Could you tell if there were any others? Arranging them by cpu useage, with the highest % on top (or bottom if preferred), will cut down the area you have to watch. As the processes start running, they will move up towards the top. You can do this multiple times if you only get a glimpse of it.

 

[muzzyman1981]

Most of it seems random as far as I can tell. I cannot tell if any are really stopping it. They jump around alot and none besides ccSvcHst come up every time.

explorer.exe
winlogin.exe
System
svchost.exe

Ok I seem to have two ccSvcHst.exe's one under SYSTEM and one with my computer's user name. It's my PC's user name one that starts up. That is the only one that ALWAYS goes on when I use the programs.

 

[aford10]

Ok, ^ those are also all valid processes. If nothing else is kicking off, then there is likely a problem with the program's installation. When you re-installed them, did you use the same install.exe?

You could also try a registry cleaner. There may be some errors there.

 

[muzzyman1981]

Well I've found the problem.

Windows Explorer.

Somehow it was blocking the programs, I uninstalled Explorer and can use everything just fine now.

 

[aford10]

You can't uninstall windows explorer. It's a user shell that supports the GUI interface for things like the taskbar and desktop. The process can be stopped in the task manager, but it will start again the the PC restarts.

Where is the file located? If it's not under C:\windows, it's a virus.