Problem with WinXP-

So everythings installed, everything's working dandy. My first home built system, and it's about 20x more stable than anything I have ever purchased from an OEM. I'm happy.

THEN, I boot up today, and ICQ plainly won't run. At all. Period. Net detect, the actual shortcut to the proggy, not even the uninstaller. I try and remove it through the add/remove proggies under Control Panel- nothing. No progress. I have Norton Systemworks + firewall- that again is glitchy. The anti-virus never fully completes itself, and none of the utilities will run independently. A couple of other programs are proving unable to run- Catchup from CNET, etc.

I'm worried I have a virus. That's the only logical conclusion I can come to in this situation. Btw, the copy of XP is a corporate copy, and as I say, everything was working a-ok until today. Can anyone help me out?

Angyman.

Do you have an antivirus program? If not, then get one and give your system a scan to see if you have a virus.

David

There's an anti virus bundled with Systemworks- but as I say, Norton would never register that it had completed a full system scan. I'd get the 'finished' dialogue box, but when I checked under a different tab, it told me that it was not completed.

I'm currently using the Symantec online virus scanner- hope that gives me a definitive result. In a way, I'm hoping that it IS a virus- as at least then I have a chance to fix it. If not, well, I'm at a loss

Angyman.

Ok. Symantec says that there are no viruses on my computer. Gah! What now?

This might sound strange, but there isn't a bug in Windows XP's Defragmenter, is there? The only solution I can come up with, assuming that I don't have a virus, is that somehow the defrag has managed to misplace various components of these programs, or some such. Then again, I don't really know enough to say that definitively Help!

Really, really need help here guys

*shameless bump*

Right. Let's try this from a different angle.

So far, I've diagnosed these problems.
-ICQ won't activate. Double clicking on the ICQ shortcut or its uninstaller does nothing. It doesn't seem to be able to be removed under add/remove programs. This is on an XP corporate edition btw.
-Systemworks will not perform the utilities functions (same prob as ICQ- click it, does nothing. zip. zilch.) Also, it will not perform a full anti-virus scan- when the scan is run, it SAYS it is complete, but checking whether it has worked or not under a different tab reveals otherwise.
- Catchup from CNET won't work. The online anti-virus from Trendmicro.com won't work. Beginning to think there's a problem with active X/Java.
- Internet Explorer crashes when I do a search for 'mirabilis'. (Hey, I'm being thorough here).
-All of this stuff was FINE one day- it all went haywire on the next.

Now, the two possible programs which might have been responsible are the Microsoft Sidewinder Drivers, and XP's actual Defragmenter, both of which are pretty unlikely. I put it down to a virus, seeing that I just happened to have problems running the Virus scanner, and the problem isn't localised, but spread across various programs. HOWEVER, since then I've run symantec.com's free online virus checker, and downloaded a trial version of PC cilin, BOTH of which indicated that I don't have a virus.

So that's my situation, and I'm stuck. Any helpful contributions will be appreciated to get me out of this fix. One other thing- I'd like to know how to perform a complete manual uninstall of ICQ, seeing that it doesn't want to be removed through any kind of uninstaller. Can anyone help me out here, pretty please?

Angyman.

Can you do a system restore??? That might help, but you may lose some data if you restore your PC to a previous date. I would recommend removing Norton - either manually or automatically. Only use the Norton Antivirus and not all the tools. Be careful what you install and make sure sure it is stable before you install other proggies. If you install too much all at once and one thing causes a problem you will have to go back to the drawing board. Check for software updates (OS, ICQ, etc.)

Good luck!

Just a couple of things. If you have an illegal corporate copy, that may be the source of your problems.

If you want to get rid of ICQ, use XP's system restore wizard and select a date prior to your initial install of ICQ, and that should set things back to rights. WinXP automatically sets daily (if your computer is on long enough) restore points--you didn't have to set anything up specifically for this.

Thanks guys. This seems to be getting worse and worse.
I've completley manually uninstalled ICQ (thanks Google)- not that I expected that to cure the problem, but still, it's progress (kinda). I've also removed Systemworks. Unsurprisingly, the PC is still cranky. Microsoft Help doesn't work now.. glitchiness galore.

As for System Restore- I was under the impression it was always problematic, so I actually deactivated it a while back when I was running a few performance tweaks. (doh) Ironic really. So no chance of a get-out there. Installation of programs- I didn't do it particularly rapidly. Spread it out over the course of 3 days, defragmented after every installation. It all seemed to be working perfectly prior to 'the day' (that day shall forever more be marked on my calendar as 'the day that XP died'.) I tend to be quite meticulous about how I put software on.

Sidenote- I thought the Norton Utlities were great? There seems to be a real mixed opinion as to whether they are any good, but my experiences with ME were that is was definetly a good product.

Finally- hypothetically speaking, if I were using an illegal corporate copy, why might that be the source of my problems? Has anyone got any information about this?

if its an illegal copy there might be some programs added in to mess up your machine. Also you should back all you important data format and reinstall (hey i know its a long shot but sometimes that solves your problem).

ok first of all the copies of xp that are illegal now are a pain to install my buddy had a copy and it took like 5 tries to get it installed right but as for instablity you problem is Norton it makes your machine so unstable it isnt funny try using mcfaee or AVG and the sidewinder drivers are they native drivers or did you install them from a cd because windows have native drivers for sidewinders i have one i know the FF2 if that doesnt work then reformat and go from there let me know if this was a help

I would offer that its a loss.... Backup your importaint files, wipe that bugger clean, and try again. Happened to me a while back, a good fdisk and a clean install cleared the problem right up.

Its a lot easier than trying to salvage the OS in my opinion... Some people get a kick out of trying that but not me.