Post Spyware Slowdown

I received help to remove the spyware that was infecting my computer. Here's the topic if you're interested: My spyware removal thread

Although my computer is now clean, it is running extremely slow. It takes forever to boot up, open a program and print a document. It's very slow opening menus as well (for example when I right click on My Computer, the mouse pointer turns into a clock and takes a minute or two to open the menu).

Still being suspicious, I ran McAfee virus scan, Spybot Search & Destroy, and AdAware. The only thing that was found was two tracking cookies, which I removed. I have reduced the startup items in msconfig to the bare minimum. I ran a thorough disk scan and had it fix any errors. I defragged the hard drive (this seemed to make it worse). I ran disk cleanup and emptied the recycle bin. I deleted a whole slew of programs to free up some hard drive space. Nothing seems to help.

What could be wrong?

dlueck

P.S. The viruses/spyware that were infecting my computer are still listed on my startup menu in msconfig. They are not selected for startup. How do I get them off the list?

What are your spec's.. ? (like Operating system…CPU.. ram.. harddrive…etc.)

Thanks for the response. I think I have resolved my problem. I purchased SystemSuite and ran the Advanced File Clean, Registry Cleaner, Registry Fixer and Jetdefrag utilities last night. This seemed to have done the trick. My guess is the problem was the registry. There were over 300 invalid entries in the registry which I could safely remove, which included entries for all the spyware I removed. After doing this, the system's performance greatly improved. My computer is about 6 years old. I'm running Windows 98 on a HP Pavillion 6640C that has an AMD-K6-2/500MHz 3D processor, 15G hard drive, and 184MB of RAM. I'm sure adding RAM would improve system performance even more. Let me know if you have any more suggestions. Thanks! Dlueck

Hi there,

As a computer gets older it dies a slow death….of course…malware infections don't help. Files get corrupted, the registry becomes corrupted…..therefore good maintainance is a must. To help performance also clean out your temp files and IE cache regularly….to complete your fixing of the registry Scanreg is a good option:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q183887/

When using a registry cleaner, always back up your registry first…tutorial here:

http://www.computerhope.com/registry.htm

Also, you want to enure all malware is removed from your system…a second opinion never hurts…scan with Panda:

Panda ActiveScan
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan
Make sure you tick Disinfect automatically under Scan Options

If the scan reveals anything more serious then tracking cookies, post the log up here.

Finally, defragment your disc

Big Smiles

HS

I followed your suggestions and everything came out OK. My issue is resolved! Thanks! dlueck

Hi there, Most glad to hear your problem is fixed…..happy and safe surfing! Big Smiles HS