I REALLY need some help/guidance

Hello,

This is my first post here so please bear with me. I have a fair knowledge of computers but not the in depth things some of you folks have.

In the past few days, my computer (Dell Inspiron 1501/Vista Home Basic SP2 x86 32bit) has been having some issues. Just now I tried to open the Control Panel and it is loading VERY slow and now it's not responding. I also checked my restore points and they have all been deleted (I don't know if it was done to make more space). I don't know what you need from me but I really am a damsel in distress at this point. On top of that I am having issues with my wifi connection. It will start off as being connected to the internet and local. Then out of nowhere it will be local only so I turn the wifi off (FN/F2) and then back on and it's a temporary fix.

I've been having things not respond (at the moment it's the control panel) and a little pop up says "Windows Explorer is not responding" or another one was a RunDll error. I'm sorry I'm all over the place with my post but I don't know what to do anymore.

Okay so now my taskbar won't even come up. If you hear a loud bang it's because I threw my laptop out the window!!

If anyone can help me I would be BEYOND grateful! :D Thank you!

*Edited to add more info*

I ran a quick scan of Malwarebytes and it came up clean. I also did a TDSSKiller scan and it came up with 2 items that were apparently infected:

[InfectedObject]
Type: Service
Name: IDriverT
Type: n/a (0x10)
Start: Demand (0x3)
ImagePath: "C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\Driver\1050\Intel 32\IDriverT.exe"

[InfectedObject]
Type: Service
Name: ProtexisLicensing
Type: n/a (0x10)
Start: Auto (0x2)
ImagePath: C:\Windows\system32\PSIService.exe

To make sure, run the free Malwarebytes and a complete anti-virus scan.

Secondly, how much free hard drive space do you have? Is it defragmented?

Right now, I'm only dealing with the first problem. We can get to the WIFi later.

Thank you so much for replying! I did the Malwarebytes quick scan, should I do a full one? I will now run a complete anti-virus scan (I have Kaspersky Internet Security)

I have 5.52GB free of 45.8GB on my C: drive and 3.85GB free of 9.99GB on my Recovery D: drive (which interestingly still seems to have my last system restore on it from the other day)

I did an error check last week sometime and a defragment was done on Wednesday.

Okay after doing a loooong full scan on Kaspersky, everything came back clean.

I don't have time this morning to research your system. A 50 Gb hard drive seems awful small. If that's truly the case and you only have 5.5 Gb free, that is probably the problem.

A couple of things to do-

Go to Start\Programs\Accessories. Find the Disk Cleanup utility and run it. Reboot.

After doing that, go to Start\Programs\System Tools. Find Disc Defragmenter. Set a schedule for it to run during a time when your system is running. You should also run it now to see immediate results.

If you have lots of personal files on the C: that you don't routinely use, you could burn them to a disc or external drive or flash drive.

I also suggest running check disk and SFC.
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66978-system-files-sfc-command.html
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/67612-check-disk-chkdsk.html

Freeing space is a good idea but you have barely enough to allow Windows to function.

Thank you both I will do everything you recommended and report back. I also want to thank you for taking the time to help me!

I know my computer is considered "over the hill", I mean I got it back in 2006/2007! But it still runs pretty well (up until this week that is) with the exception of the wifi issue and a couple of other things. I'm hoping I can clean up the mess and keep using it for a little longer before taking the plunge and getting a new one. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't find this place!

Off to perform the tasks above.

Let us know how it goes.

The defragmenting just finished so now on to the SFC Command and Check Disk.

A sidenote: A while back I changed my Administrator User Account name to another one and didn't merge the files. So I'm pretty sure this is eating up space because there is a file with my old name on it with the same programs/files as my current one. Does that make sense?

Okay I just finished the check disk.

Update: Did the SFC scan and it came up clean as well.

So how much free hard drive space do you have now? Is your system responding better?

I have 2.08GB free now

Did you notice how much free space the Disk Cleanup utility said it was going to create?


I think that your free space was so low that, earlier, it was reporting it incorrectly.

The question is, do you still have the problem? Sooner or later, you're either going to have to do something to free up a significant amount of disk space or this problem will continue. I went through this when I had a 6 Gb hard drive and Win 98. I was constantly juggling files.

I think that one of the problems might be from a user account snafu. The computer name/administrator account changed a couple of times over the years so it's creating copies of whatever files I have in my main folder to the old administrator account folder due to not merging the user folders. I'm afraid to delete anything because I don't want to mess up my computer or make things worse. I also think there are files that I no longer need (for example old java files) and things like that. I don't know about these things so if I need to compose a list of programs I can do that just let me know. Thank you

Merely renaming the account does not create new files and the name of the folder does not change and shouldn't. For example if your profile was called administrator and you named it to john doe then the folder for your profile is still going to be c:/users/administrator. If you change the folder name you will break your profile. The same thing will happen if you delete it. Now according to our example if you actually deleted the profile administrator and created the profile john doe then it will be safe to delete administrator's folder provided that you have backed up or moved your documents.

Unfortunately you are still left with what is today a relatively small hard drive that will be rapidly filled up if you download alot of music and especially videos. I don't know what you have but more than likely you will need to transfer your personal documents to an external hard drive or install a secondary internal drive and put your personal documents, videos, mustic, etc. there. See this tutorial to properly move your shell folders. If you don't your profile will still look for the folders.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/107990-personal-user-shell-folders-move-location.html

I only have a few photos and songs on my computer because I usually move them to a flash drive. Isn't there a way for me to copy and paste a list of running programs/services/files to see what I should get rid of/run? I just started having problems this week and I've had less space on my system before and it's worked fine. I think it might be something else because the green light that shows system activity has been lit up and doesn't seem to stop just keeps blinking. I've also had programs "not responding" like the control panel and when disconnecting/reconnecting to wifi (see below explanation). I just think there is more going on than the low disk space because I've dealt with that in the past with CCleaner with no issues.

I've also been having problems with my wifi going from Internet and Local to randomly just Local but I can still access the internet with it on local. But that is for another time.

ETA: I just did a CClean and did a registry scan for issues and one of the things listed was this:

ActiveX/COM Issue InProcServer32\C:\Windows\system32\wuaucpl.cpl HKCR\CLSID\{5F327514-6C5E-4d60-8F16-D07FA08A78ED}

I have no idea what this means so I'm obviously not going to touch it but could it be something that is contributing to my issue?

There are lots of ways to see what's running on your computer.

For instance, go to Start and run msconfig.exe. In the Startup tab, look at what things are running at startup. Those things are all running in the background and using resources. Disabling non-critical items, won't prevent you from running them after you've started up. There may also be things in the Services tab that you can disable. You should know what each service does before disabling a particular service.


You can also download Pcdecrapifier. It will list all software on your system and give you the opportunity to uninstall those you don't need.

As I mentioned earlier, we can address the wifi issue later. It could be that problem is related your space availability.

Hi wither 3, I will try your recommendations. I feel a bit weary about disabling something in the services tab, for fear of breaking my computer. I noticed that when I upgraded my Firefox that it created a desktop folder titled "Old Firefox Data". I'm not sure why I would need it, as I have been faithfully copying my bookmarks to my portable flash drive. I assume it's safe to delete this?

Thank you all for being so patient with me. I wish there was a way I could show my appreciation, it's really nice to know that there are still kind people out there willing to help out strangers.

ETA: I just did the msconfig.exe and the startup list has programs listed that I no longer have on my system like Adobe Reader 9.0 and files from an old Dell printer I no longer have. Also, I have Java Platform SE Auto Updater 2.0 as enabled but I disabled it which I'm assuming is okay.

I looked at the services tab and noticed there are a bunch of Microsoft services that are listed as STOPPED. For example:

Application Layer Gateway Service
Certificate Propagation
COM+ System Application
DFS Replication
Function Discovery Provider Host
Microsoft .NET Framework NGEN v2.0 50727_x86
Network Access Protection Agent
Protected Storage
Health Key and Certificate Management
PnP-X IP Bus Enumerator
Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper
Performance Logs & Alerts
PNRP Machine Name Publication Service
Smart Card
Smart Card Removal Policy
Windows Backup
Windows Image Acquisition
Diagnostic Service Host
Windows Event Collector
Problem Reports and Solutions Control Panel Support

Should any of these be generally running for an average computer?

I wouldn't touch those things listed for Microsoft in the Services tab. Some of those are configured to run in different ways after you've booted into Windows.

You should be able to delete the desktop icon and the other things you mentioned in the Startup tab of msconfig. However, since the latter items aren't even installed, they're not going to affect operations of your system.

What is important is to free up hard disc space because of the problem you're experiencing. If you go to control panel\Programs and Features, you can see what software is installed on your system (just like in pcdecrapifier). It's hard to say if deleting any of them will free up significant space since some programs have small footprints.

For programs that you've uninstalled, you should look in C:\Program Files (I assume your system is 32 bit) and delete folders related to them.

Yes it's a 32 bit. I have Microsoft Office installed on my computer so that right there is what is probably the bulk of what's taking up space. I use the word program a lot but the others not so much.

I was looking in the Program Files folder and have a question about older Java folders. There are 3 of them:

jre1.6.0
jre6
jre7 (this one I'm assuming stays since it's the latest one)

Is it okay to delete the first 2?

Another question I have is there are 2 WinZip folders one is just regular WinZip but the other right below it says WinZip(5). I'm such a chicken when it comes to deleting things.