<p>FIX MY COMPUTER. Sorry, nothing's working, and I'm starting to get frustrated.</p>
<p>If anyone can help, my computer recently got bombarded with trojans, spawning adware/spyware/malware. Norton did nothing, and this is how I recovered. I ran spybot, adaware, then CCleaner which should help speed things up, everything was still running horribly slow so I ran Ewido Security Suite, and then I recently ran the Microsoft AntiSpyware deep scan which got a ton more stuff.</p>
<p>However, my computer is still having sporadic lags, and a continual lag with AIM. I have uninstalled and reinstalled AIM, and all taht seems to have done is eliminated my collection of away messages, tragic. There's just a huge lag with it and it's bugging the crap out of me.</p>
<p>Anyone know how to fix that or anything that might help either my computer/AIM.</p>
<p>I have XP, fairly new computer.</p>
<p>And no, the answer is not get Trillian, MSN messenger, or a Mac.</p>
<p>Did you cross-check your process list with a database to see if anything shouldn't be running?</p>
<p>Hit Ctrl-Shift-Esc, then click on the processes tab. If you have more than 30-40, you should be very suspicious (even if you don't, take a look). Then Google each process you have and see if they come up as malware. If they do, Google some more to find the fix.</p>
<p>Okay, I'm really not much of a computer person, sorry. </p>
<p>What specs do you want.</p>
<p>And I have 49 processes that are running...so I guess I'll take a look. Wouldn't Microsoft's AntiSpyware get rid of any of those though? I mean it's updated continually.</p>
<p>When I have no programs running, I have around 30. If you're running like 20 instances of Internet Explorer/Netscape/Firefox, remember that each one counts as a process. So 49 is fine if (1) programs are running, or (2) there are a lot of things on your taskbar at the lower right.</p>
<p>If you want, you can post a list of your processes and I can tell you which ones you can ignore and which ones are potentially harmful...</p>
<p>msmgs.exe = BAD
taskmgr.exe = OK
firefox.exe = OK
msst.exe = ???
gcasDtServ.exe = OK
SpamSubtract.exe = OK
aim.exe = OK
gcasServ.exe
mssts.exe
cabinet4.exe
wmplayer.exe
hkcdm.exe
igfxtray.exe
ccApp.exe = OK
kbd.exe
hpgs2wnd.exe
HpqCmon.exe
hpsysdrv.exe
wdfmgr.exe
omniserv.exe
Navapsvc.exe
gearsec.exe
ccEvtMgr.exe
spoolsv.exe = OK
realsched.exe = OK
svchost.exe = OK
wscntfy.exe
explorer.exe = OK
iPodService.exe = OK
iTunesHelper.exe = OK
svchost.exe (network service) = OK
svchost.exe (system) = OK
lsass.exe = OK
services.exe = OK
winlogon.exe = OK
csrss.exe = OK
smss.exe = OK
alg.exe
OPXPApp.exe
hpgs2wnf.exe
ViewMgs.exe
exSP_Px.exe
System = OK
System Idle Process = OK</p>
<p>Seriously, it's the most painless and easiest thing to do in these situations. (Heres a tip to always make reformats easier...partition your drives into data and OS)</p>
<p>hkcmd is "hot key command" ... (=OK)
used (probably) for one of these two -
1) the intel graphics hotkey thingie
2) windows xp language switching hotkey</p>
<p>tagran, get some nerdy guy to format your computer for you. If you're not sure what you're doing, you risk losing all your data... and I mean ALL of it!</p>
<p>"what happens when you reformat, what would I have to backup"</p>
<p>Think of reformatting as tearing down your house with a wrecking ball...EVERYTHING is gone after you reformat, so you need to copy all of your documents, pictures, and music onto CDs, a USB stick, or some other backup. IF you happen to forget something and reformat over it, DO NOT PANIC. Get "some nerdy guy", and he should be able to work some magic and pull back at least parts of the files you deleted. But this only works if once you realize you forgot something, you IMMEDIATELY stop using your computer. It works kind of like this:
Your computer is a whiteboard. When you put a file on, you write it on the white board. When you delete a file, you clean it off with the eraser. However, immediately after, you can still see a faded image of what you wrote (depending on how well you erased). There is software to reconstruct what you lost from the "faded image". Notice, though, that if you put another file on, it becomes harder and harder to read the image. Most software will give up after 5 or so "rewrites".</p>
<p>i do think reformatting your computer is your best bet....reformatting and then rebooting all of your drivers/BIOS/important programs.....you can redownload everythinge else...AIM, Gneutella stuff, songs, pictures...save a bunch of your important documents and things you can't restore toa jump drive and reformat...then be more selective with your browsing/how you handle your net...don't click on random ass links that ppl send you unless they tell you what they are, don't run random exe programs from websites just be more careful....</p>
<p>How big is your hard drive? And how much room do you have left as free space? </p>
<p>Click on "My Computer". Right click on your hard drive icon and select "Properties". This will show you the size of your hard drive and how much free space is left. The reason I ask is that Windows requires quite a bit of "swap" space for temporary files. As your hard drive fills up, you start to take performance hits... If you got lots of junk on your drive, it may be time to start deleting old programs and junk files that you no longer need. </p>
<p>Then go back to "My computer", right click on "Properties" and select "Disk Cleanup". This will get rid of a lot of temporary files that take up space. Review the files that the program thinks can be deleted safely and get rid of them. </p>
<p>Select the "Tools" tab and select "Defragment".</p>
<p>Reformatting is definitely the best bet. But, no offense, I am more knowledgeable about computers than you are and I wouldn't even know how to reformat my computer (my twin bro does all that stuff). I would highly advise you have a tech-savvy friend do it, and only after you burn all your desired files onto DVD/CD.</p>