Read & Run Me steps Followed, Now MSCT.dll missing msg and applications are slow

Hi guys,

Windows XP Pro SP3
Intel Celeron 2.4GHz
2.00 GB RAM

I found one of the zlobs in my avg vault so removed it, then thought it would be a good idea to do some maintenance. My machine has always run like lightning until now.

I followed all of the steps on Read & Run Me First and Windows XP Cleaning procedures threads.

Now when opening Excel I get an alert "This application has failed to start because MSCTF.dll was not be found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem". Clicking OK closes the alert and Excel runs normally.

Logging in to Windows is extremely slow.

Opening Outlook Express takes a minute or longer. ( Not normal. I empty the INBOX monthly.)

Firefox takes forever to open. Typing this message, it is like the inputs get put into a buffer. Using the browser scroll bars sometimes causes the appearance of the hour glass. A lot of delay is apparent in doing just about any task.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware log to follow in a seperate post.

Any ideas?

Thank you,
Ted S.

 

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware log attached

By the way, Windows Auto Updates has been turned off (I don't know how it happened) and I know the Security update was sent out by MS today so, I in an attempt to re-enable Automatic Updates I tried Run>msconfig and the alert pops up "'msconfig' can not be found etc. " however, I found it in C:\Windows\ServicePackFiles\i386. Double clicking the icon there caused msconfig to run normally.

(Still can't find how to re-enable auto updates, but will google that)

I don't recall removing msconfig.

Thank you again,
Ted S.

 

Thanks for taking the time to look them over Tim!

I solved my problems by doing a restore from an external hard drive that I had forgotten about. In October I had bought a 500 GB Western Digital and done a full system backup. I saved my data to my network drive, then did a full restore replacing existing files.

She purrs just like she did before! Thank God for doing that backup. The first one I have done in years.

All the best and Happy Holidays!
Ted S.

 

Following up on this post. This post is in Malware Removal because in the process of malware removal, the file was deleted.

The MSCTF.dll file was removed in the process of following the Read & Run Me steps. After removal all MS Office aps and some other 3rd party aps would take forever to display an error message 'This application did not start because MSCTF.dll was not found.'

Note that the error message does not say the file is not on your computer. The solution is takes two seconds. Look in C:/Windows/system32/dllcache and find the msctf.dll file. Copy and paste file into C:/Windows/system32 and you are done. All of the app's are looking there for the file and not finding it.

Cheers,
Ted S.