I'm a 32-bit Vista Home Premium user, and about 2 months ago I downloaded a program from CNET.com which had been suggested to me by a friend. The program in question, Advanced System Care Free, has since been removed from my computer.
About 3-4 weeks ago, while I was trying to load Final Fantasy VIII, a window popped up. (Image above) I couldn't figure out what the "problem" might be, I'd been running FF8 on my computer for over a year without problems/crashes. I turn on the game, it goes through it's usual opening sequence, splashes a manufacturer's name across the screen, and then, just as it's loading the saved games, the loading bar stops mid-load, and the game crashes. That's when this window pops up.
Naturally I have no idea what "problem" this could be. There's no emphasis towards missing files or a code number I can use to look it up on the internet, nothing. Another thing I noticed right off the bat was that it couldn't possibly be something to do with Final Fantasy, but rather a problem with another program. I tried virus scan which turned up nothing.
About once a month, I go through Programs and Features and uninstall and delete everything I don't use/need. A few days after the FF8 crash, I tried this. Of course, I found some little things here and there that I didn't need, but when I went to uninstall them, I'd click on it and nothing would happen. I wouldn't get any sort of response from my computer, not even an hour glass symbol, nothing. I tried to look it up and found nothing.
A few days later, still, I tried to install video software regularly used by BitComet. The installation was going as per usual when the installation crashed all of a sudden, and the above window popped up.
You can imagine by now I was confused and a little worried, so I decided to try a system restore--I guess I really don't know what I'm doing because I couldn't find a restore point older than a week so I didn't restore my computer at all. Instead I looked up the exact window message on the internet and found a website much like this one stating that "Advanced System Care contains a registry cleaner so powerful that it could render your PC unusable." That rung a bell because, as luck would have it, I used that registry cleaner. After reading that post, though it contained no real solution to my problem, everything that had been happening made sense. FF8 crashed because a file was missing, the installation crashed because a file was missing, and the programs I tried to uninstall couldn't do it automatically because the uninstall files were missing.
Now I know what the problem is--files are missing, but the question I'm asking today is how do I find out which files are missing and replace them with new/existing ones? And if not that, then what can I do about this ongoing problem? Advanced System Care Free has been uninstalled from my computer and I've ceased using all it's add-ons and utilities.
Furthermore I would like to say that I'm no genius with computers but I can follow instructions well and would most likely have no problem dealing with it with a little help from you fine people here at the Vista forums.
Thanks for considering my issue, and let me know if there's any information I've left out.
