Akward problem.

Hello, As of late on my windows XP sp2, I have come across a very strange program, actually two, one more weird then the other.

The first problem is the raising amounts of hanging programs, mainly Warcraft 3, (War3.exe) whenever I try to end the process, it just remains there, even if I try end process tree... This perticular problem is not the one I am to worried about, as the processes slowly decrease is size and take up no cpu.

The real problem is the inability to install ANYTHING. I first noticed this when I was unable to update a WarCraft 3 patch, I just looked past it and didnt think twice about it. (Although I was pretty upset.) But then I noticed a theme.. When I went to update to a new version of Win-amp, the installer Crashed as soon as it came to the actuall installing, (I chose what kind of install I wanted, and chose the path, but when I told me it was preparing to install. Then it crashed.) And when it crashes, it REALLY crashes, I am unable to terminate the process, and each time I attempt to, it creats a 1mb process called Dumprep, which I dont susspect, concidering it is an actual Windows Task, but it makes a seperate one for every time I try to exit the installer. The installer remains until I turn off the comptuer, and I have to litterally hold in the power button until it shuts off, because it wont shut down normally if I had attempted to install anything. This problem has also occured with Gizmo project (Internet phone 100% safe.) Firefox 1.5 update and winamp 5.12 (I think its that version.)

I have Spyware checked with Ad-aware and Virus Checked with AVG free. I have also checked every process on my task manager list and everyone of them look non-suspicious, BUT, one of my Scvhosts look funny, Because I heard on the internet somewhere, that a Scvhost.exe should never be bigger then your Explorer.exe, and it is a few MB larger.

This also might have started a while back when somthing Strange had also happened...

I had just updated to the new WindowBlinds 5 version (I am NOT currently using it.) And I was enjoying the new look. I have multiple users on my computer as most do, so when my mother came to play her spider game, she won, then got bored, and switched users to her account. When I switched back, Explorer was completly screwed up. It took a very long time to fix, and I even tried restarting explorer.exe, which failed to make a difference. And Task manager was incredibly slow, however the rest of the computer ran almost at normal speed. I ended up fixing the problem by disabling Windowblinds, and I have not used it since.

If anyone has any suggestions on what to do, please say so, I am really aching to update my programs.

 

Hi Velius. Welcome to MG.

The most obvious thing I can suggest is trying the installs from safe mode just in case it is one of your background tasks that is causing the problem.

 

Didn't work, thanks for the suggestion though...

Should I use the "Hijack this" Utillity?

 

You could use the Hijack this utility certainly. Just remember it only gives a list of items that may or may not be harmful. Do not just "fix" things without being absolutely sure of what is being deleted. It would be better to post the HJT log and let someone with more experience advise you.

I'm perfectly happy to do that for you here if you need the advice.

 

I wonder if windows blinds did somthing to the system as i have bootscreen on my computer and i cannot perform any maintence tasks in boot time while the skin is active or i get a blue screen of death. Maybe try uninstalling windows blinds. Or do what yargwel said and try it in safemode although i doubt it will work scince installsheild never seems to work properly in safe mode anyway.
-the new tech guy

 

I did uninstall Window blinds, as well as every other stardock product.
Still has yet to work.

And now that you mention it... Install shield has bee acting funny latly...

I have had this computer for about 3 or 4 years now, and only recently has the install shield update been starting to pop up randomly.. I always kill the process for its updates.. But I have tried installing without killing the process..

Every time I attempt to update it, it tells me that there are no updates.

 

Now that I think about it...
The last program I successfully installed (I think...) was
RPG Maker XP - Postality Knights Edition ENHANCED..

And when I check Install shields auto updates settings, only install shield manager and Rpg maker XP are on the list...

Now, I changed to Postality Knights Edition because my other one was screwed up, but this was somewhat recently...

Could RPG Maker XP - Postality Knights Edition ENHANCED have anything to do with this?

 

It is either that or installsheild is corupted. I think a place to start would be to reinstall installsheild wizard to rule out any corruption in that.
-the new tech guy

 

Just a quick question before I do...

Firefox uses its own installer and says nothing of installshield, as does Winamp..
Does it still use install shield anyways?

Oh, and I looked up info on RMXP, I found no one else with this problem..

Actually, the last thing that was installed was MSN messenger, which was quickly removed (Someone else installed it...)

I deleted a DLL in the folder and deleted the folder of MSN messenger as well, but still no sucsess...

Thanks so far!

 

Well i do not think they do but by what your telling me i would reinstall installsheild and see if that fixes anything first. If that is to no avail but some programs install without difficulty again i would try uninstalling the windows installer thing as i think both would be corrupted if it goes on in things that use installsheild and dont. But before we play with the windows one lets see if reinstalling installsheild gets us anywhere first.
-the new tech guy

 

The problem is that Install shield seems to be working, its things that DONT use install shield that are messing up...

I downloaded Windows Installer 3.1 and Windows installer Clean up...

I am afraid to use either .

 

So the reinstalling installsheild helped with things that use installshield? Do you have a windows cd? Or if your pc is shelf it should have at least a recovery partition on the hd. If so i want you to run this command: "sfc /scannow" (no quotes just copy and paste what is inside the quotes into the run box.) This process takes a good while so give the computer time to finish. Once it is done restart the system and let us know if it helped at all. But before doing the above i would reccomend you try installing both windows installer 3.1 and run the cleanup utility you have and if that fails go with my sfc /scannow methood mentioned above.
-the new tech guy