Topic awaiting preservation: Problem with Task Manager in XP (Page 1 of 1)

I should have known not to tempt fate by saying "My system seems to be working perfectly" the other day!!
I thought I noticed a slight slowness in overall performance on and offline to my system (P4 1.7, 500mb SDRAM, Geforce 2mmx,) running XPHome.
I pressed (Ctrl+Alt+Del) to bring up task manager, but it just flashes on then dissapears, the icon remains in the sys tray, but when I move the mouse to click it it too dissapears. No matter how many times I tried It just flashes on (less than a second) and dissapears. I have tried going to "Run" and typing it in there with the same result. This also happens if I try to open up "Regedit" by the same method. I can't seem to access any system tools.
I am the only user on the computer and I have set myself as a Administrator.
I could access both TaskManager and regedit last week (That was before I was reconnected to the net and downloaded the updates and hotfixes),
Then a friend (who was assisting me) booted in safe mode (a thing I had not tried with XP before) to try to sort the problem. In safe mode task mgr worked ok, but I could not see anything I could recognise amiss there.
Then to my horror I found when back in "normal" mode that all my previous restore points had been deleted. I had about 5 restore points and neither I or my mate had turned it off.
I have tried MS Knowledge base but I keep getting "service unavailable" as I do with the "Windows Update" page.
Any suggestions?
Tao

I too had this problem at one stage. It occurs in the registery paths. There is one simple solution to this problem.
If you have Norton anti-virus on your computer, you simply run the Norton Win-Doctor and it will automatical fix the path files and everything will work right after that. Apart from that, I don't know what else you could do.

Thanks for that Ogie. I have actually run that test a couple of times and ran a full system scan with AVG Windows Washer, and AdAware. But the problem persists.
It sounds like it should be easily solved, but not by me ,,,heh.
Ah well if anyone has any ideas what they think it may be, let me know, I'm at a dead end ATM.
Cheers
[edit] After much digging around I find that the bad news may be that I have a virus called "W32.Spybot.Worm" So I am following the advices given to me there and here Bit Defender [edit] [ed2] Can anyone see my sig below? It's not appearing on my screen!
"Will this maDneSs never stop!!"




[This message has been edited by Taobaybee (edited 11-26-2003).]

[This message has been edited by Taobaybee (edited 11-26-2003).]

Nope I can't see any sig... just the famouse white square and dot pic..

Arghhh , I haven't a clue why thats happening, I don't know if the images I'm seeing are in my cache or if they are all redX. I feel gagged without my little doodles..The only thing I think I can do now is go to bed and see if the worlds a better place tomorrow.

Fingers crossed (that should have been an image)

And the world was a better place next day. Got rid of the W32 Spybot and my ISP decided to resume it's service. Here are a few screenshots that show the steps I took to flush the worm out. Here

That small realsched.exe file in your Task Manager processes list is run by RealOne Player.
I hate this player, I really do. I hate anything from this Real company.
I was forced to install this shit of piece of code because it's the only way to watch the online lectures.
I think that everytime you use RealOne, it will add a line to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run key of the registry to run this little pest, if the line is not there already, and I have no idea what is for (maybe to check for updates or to bother you for some registration or similar). I simply delete this key, whenever the app shows up in my processes list. It's one process less in the list.

i freaking hate these things. I've had two virus' and they are just annoying. bother were MM's though. Tricky little bastards.

looks like ya go Windowblinds there Taobaybee?

Later,

C:\


~Binary is best~

Yep viol, I had to install Real(pain)One Player to hear a lot of programs on the BBC website. I've informed the BBC of the error of their ways, but so far thay have chosen to ignore my advice.
CPrompt, 'tis not Windowblinds I use , it's Style XP. The theme is based on Warcraft, screenshot Here


[Doh] my spelling is abismal, oops, abysmal [doh]

[This message has been edited by Taobaybee (edited 11-27-2003).]