I had some similar problems with a relative's computer. The short of it there was a trojan eating up memory and doing God knows doing what else. Sure, I had the latest Ad-Aware and free online virus scan done. Found out that it was too new for the scanner (hey, it's free
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) and it actually hid itself from Ad-Aware! Old fashioned detective work in the Registry looking under the Run and RunServices keys found obscure programs being run. A simple Google and I found they were trojans. Deleted them and restarted. Suddenly Ad-Aware found dozens of issues with the 'puter!
The programs that are used to find these scummy programs are quite well known and are now being targetted and circumvented which is quite easy to do.
As for the above 'puter? It still had many more issues which would only yield to some heavy Registry editing. After two days straight I hacked the registry so much Windoze wouldn't start up! No problem though as there was nothing to save and I did it to learn. I certainly did learn! A reinstall solved everything.
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Earendil
SysAdmin of Boston Freelancer server
Server community website & forum:
EarendilsPlace.net (
server rules)