Strange behavior on/after startup (WinXP SP2)

I was directed here from the Malware Removal Forum and am experiencing the following:

• Slow startup times.
• Long lag times between startup and applications opening (i.e. After system startup (meaning both the avast! and ZoneAlarm icons are visible in the system tray), I click Firefox (or MS Word, CCleaner, Dreamweaver, etc.) and it takes from 1.5 to 2 minutes to finally open.)
• Intermittent bouts of the OS not finding applications on the hard drive -- after a reboot, or continuous Open attempts, the apps finally open.

I've attached print-screens of some error msgs I've received.

[Note: Was unable to attach one of the error msgs because it was already posted in my Malware Removal thread. You can see it by clicking the link provided above.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Would recommend that you follow the instructions in this post to tweak your software for performance.

For hardware performance boosts, please see the overclocking guide.

 

I've done all of that, but what about the error messages?

Also, why does my add/remove programs window look like this, w/non-removable entries?

 

Seen this after a couple of malware infections. In those cases, it was major registry damage - far beyond anything that could be fixed, short of reinstalling every application to rebuild the registry information. (Making a format and reinstallation a MUCH more attractive option)

Let's hope this isn't the case for you.

Please follow the instructions in this post, and post a screenshot of what you can see in one of these keys.

 

Yes, let's hope it's not that.

I've attached a registry screenshot of one of the culprits, Destinations, w/o any changes. This one, along with many others, appears only in the uninstall section of CCleaner. Would deleting these offending entries from the registry altogether be advisable?

 

NO! That will cause worse problems with these apps!

What we want to do is right-click and modify the 'NoChange', 'NoModify', 'NoRepair' and/or 'NoRemove' keys here. Currently, they're set to a value of 1, which hides these options in Add/Remove Programs. For these options to be there, this needs to be set to 0.

 

All 'NoModify', 'NoRepair' and 'NoRemove' key values have been set to 0 and everything still looks the same.

Screenshots and registry export attached.