Re: Windows Start Menu

William M. Klein wrote:
Concerning "MSCONFIG" and clean up stuff, I have been using CCLeaner recently and found it pretty good in cleaning up "temp" stuff AND it has a fairly decent interface into what I assume is "msconfig" (at least it does the same kind of thing with a LITTLE more information about what each existing started application is).

See:
http://www.ccleaner.com/

(I haven't had problems with the "registry cleaner" part - but if you don't want to use that part, you can turn it off)

Thanks Bill. Took my life in my hands and gave CCLeaner a go specifically the Registry Cleaner.

But before that I used RegCure which I had downloaded and subsequently paid for because it was specifically marketed as a cure for Windows32\services.exe problems - but see below.

EACH time I run Regcure, and as Pete observed, perhaps a non-starter in terms of end-user help, it lists errors by 11 categories. First runs, there are errors all over the place; gradually they get reduced by subsequent runs. However, consistently there are errors for Path Filenames and Empty Registry Items. I have never got the errors down to ZERO even when I immediately did a second scan.

So before trying CCleaner - Registry

1. Run Regcure - Path Filenames 18, Empty Registry Items 97, Total 115; Clean-up = Zero
2. Run CCLeaner - Registry - big list but not a count that I saw. Delete whole list.
3. Repeat Step 2 - roughly 10 items perhaps - Delete whole list.
4. Back to Regcure - 28 Empty Registry Items - Fix All
5. Back to CCLeaner - zippo - no entries.
6. Thought OK - give Regcure another go. Step 4 above (Regcure) informed me it got rid of 28 entries - whereas Step 5 (CCLeaner) said zero. So with Regcure still loaded I did another scan. No surprise, we still have a figure of 5 for Empty Registry Items.

That's the sort of thing I was referring to when I said I don't trust any of them totally. At this point I favour the following FREE Versions - AVG V 8, Ad-Aware and CCLeaner from what I have achieved so far.

One NOT to try is Registry Cleaner. A Free Download, (they really mean of course a Free Trial). Without knowing, I wouldn't mind betting they hike the numbers. They plague the life out of you if you don't complete the sign-up. Can't remember sequence, but I was filling in their info box to <Submit>, had entered my e-mail address - noticed something about the price and quit the dialog. Smart boys :-

a) On event TabKey store entry-field contents, if any
b) On event Cancel (and perhaps Quit) -
check if the TabKey entryfield contains what looks like a valid
e-mail address then pester the living daylights out of the
potential sucker with a host of e-mails enumerating disasters
that can occur by not using their software.

Not sure which checker I was using - but for screen display it was listing items for the category, "Checking potential areas where viruses/Trojans can be placed", with pathnames of course. Well how about that. Could it be that hackers know exactly where not to place their 'bombs' and place them somewhere else.

SERVICES.EXE :

I wont write separately about Security as I intended, so I'll cover Win32\services.exe here. I should mention I no longer try and use Trend Micro Housecalls - it has lousy communication screens and I found that it was telling me it was going through phases, but leaving it alone for some 30 minutes I got the message it was in a loop. (To be fair to Housecalls if may have been negaged by other machine problems that it couldn't get around. But I satill don't like their screens/dialogs).So far as I could tell, initially using AVG and TM Housecall it looked like I had cured my problems. Then keeping the Windows Task Manager active I found performance was just plain awful and established I was getting "Not Responding" on Mozilla Firefox (Google), and kept highlighting different lines in the Task Manager until it signaled Firefox was running.

One of the checkers suggested Firefox had been hijacked - that I could understand very clearly from performance. So I switched to IE, which I don't normally use and there was a prompt to download Google Chrome, which I did. They claim it's a cut down version of the full Google in IE or Firefox and at this stage somewhat experimental, so they will occasionally give you a chirpy message like "Oops ! We are sorry for the inconvenience but we have a problem. We need to shut Chrome down and Restart - Yes or No".

For info - I can access the Prima Computing site from Google Chrome.

I didn't get any "Not Responding" messages from the Task Manager on either IE or Chrome. BUT......... the next one that came up, and I don't have screens to quote, "Application Sharing Error (or whatever the title is) followed by some text with a <OK> or <Cancel>. Don't know why they bothered with the <Cancel> - you get the same result - a small square Dialog telling you there are errors blah, blah and the error is something like "Error -5896743". And we will shut your machine down in 60 seconds and Restart.

Sorry for being a pedantic former Systems Analyst - but why tell me you are shutting down and restarting when the machine will contain the same error ? That informative error number above - go check the Microsloth site - you gotta be kidding. You get some help from MS on services.exe, some KB articles devoted to specific problems and a caution to only use with your problem - how come fixes to services.exe are not cumulative? Yes Richard, obviously I'm being naive again.

I tried Safe Mode but without selecting 'Safe Mode with Networking' I couldn't e-mail or browse. Devices like the Lexmark printer aren't loaded for Safe Modes and AVG does only a short hand version scan with a DOS screen white on black, top line only. So I experimented on recovery in Safe Mode and when the different types of services.exe error dialogs came up dragged them to the bottom right out of sight so I could carry on working. Occasionally, but not on a daily basis, I responded to an MS Dialog 'Send Error Report' or 'Ignore'.

Avast3 is one security checker I haven't tried yet (info passed on by our MS Excel expert - "List of Invokes"). Avast3 is a Freebie but their latest is Avast 8 - Free Trial then pay. I used a mix of the stuff above and eventually Ad-Aware seems to have done the trick - but probably a combination with the others. I still haven't been brave enough to re-load Firefox as Google Chrome seems adequate. Still getting those services.exe errors so repeatedly as one occurred I triggered 'Send Error Report'. I did sometimes quickly see the word 'Updating.....' in Start-Up - so I'm assuming that's our friends in Bellingham, Wa. God bless their little hearts the services.exe problem completely disappeared.(No doubt they were pissed off that some clown in the Great White North was continuously complaining).

Now I'm home and dry, and back to using Windows in normal mode, or so I thought. I think somebody here, years ago, referred to it at the 'Dreaded Blue Screen'. "You'se got serious problems buddy and we are shutting down to avoid damaging your machine" while at the same time doing a memory dump to disk - but they don't tell you why or where the dump will be filed.

From memory (Give me a break - how many screen shots of exactly what happened or was displayed do you think I could possibly make while all the above nonsense is going on). They suggested the Safe Mode routine, which I had already discovered - tapping F8 while still in initial Start-Up. Second suggestion was Restore. Quite painless. Comes up with a calendar dialog which lets you select an earlier date when things appeared to work, prior to your current misfortune.

It APPEARS to work now - but I await the next disaster. Having loaded the desktop and icons there is a definite pause. Left clicking on icons seems sluggish and I have better performance with Right double-click and select 'Open'. From that point on performance seems to improve - but you never know............

If I have to utilize my time I would much rather do gardening in our short summers rather than try and become an expert in computer 'innards' technology. The latter turns me on as much as the thought of servicing my own car !

Jimmy, Calgary AB
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Relevant Pages

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