Add/Remove Programs List won\'t populate in xp

[brittonjl]

Can you help with this problem?

 

[PhilFrisbie]

Are you sure it is not just taking a long time to populate? I have seen PCs that took about two full minutes to populate.

 

[brittonjl]

Are you sure it is not just taking a long time to populate? I have seen PCs that took about two full minutes to populate.

I waited over 15 minutes and still nothing.

 

[negative0007]

This has happened to me on many occasions. Even 3rd party software wouldn't allow any adding/removing.

Another mysterious symptom has been Ctrl/Alt/Del would add 25% to my cpu usage EACH TIME it was used (ctrl/alt/del 4 times = 100% cpu usage).

Each time this has happened to me, it's been a virus that I spent days trying to find. I'd even run anti-rootkit software.

I never really had much luck figuring out how to solve it, other than reinstalling the OS over itself.