byte_king

I had the same problem with Norton and MBAM freezing each other up. Add the exclusions mountaintree16 suggested. Hope it works!

Thank you. After a little technical mishap, a friend of mine needs to get a new product key. Unfortunately, we live in Canada so that website does not seem to apply to us, but we discovered we must call MS directly to be issued a new key. Thank you

Does anyone know where I can get a Windows 7 activation key? I'm trying to help someone.

Hey guy, Hope everything works out. I know firsthand how frustrating it can be when Windows Explorer fails to function. Just one point, please stop spamming on this forum. Add to a thread in a meaningful way, don't just post one sentence generalities just to up your post count. It hurts you, as it hurts your reputation, and it just annoys everyone else. I have noticed you doing this for a few days now (The Norton haters thread is a prime example) and it is frustrating getting so many emails saying so and so posted on this thread only to find out that the post it meaningless. People on this forum are friendly, considerate, and all of us have knowledge to share and knowledge to learn. It would be awesome to see what you can teach us, and it will be a shame to see you get kicked off the forum for spamming. Please be consideerate. That is all I ask. Good luck with everything. I will keep an eye out to see how the issue resolves itself

I had a similar problem once. I ended up just reinstalling windows as I had no idea how to rectify the issue. I am dubious that MBAM deleted explorer.exe. It's possible, but I feel it is unlikely. Could it be possible for ERUNT to fix the issue, however? I think it can be a quick test to see if it really is malware. Fix the explorer.exe issue, than deal with the malware problem if there is one. He said he shut down and powered up in the morning, which suggests to me that the possible infection causes this issue somewhere during the shut down or booting process. I'm by no means an expert, but maybe he should get explorer.exe back running, than deal with the infection. Could this be a possible way of attacking the issue?

Is Windows Defender even effective? It never catches anything on my computer.

I primarily use Firefox. I find IE8 too slow. I've tried CometBird, but I essentially thought it was a rip-off of FF. I like GoogleChrome, but I've read articles about it not being as secure as Firefox. I don't really think IE8 competes seriously in the browser market, Most third-party browsers seem to score consistently higher than IE as far as reliability, security, and speed is concerned. Why is this? I think part of the reason is most browsers get incremental updates every few months or so, while IE gets updated every few years or so.... Too shame MS.

My friend recently bought a program called Fresh RAM and he's been raving about it. He has 1gb of RAM installed on his HP machine. I am wondering if anyone has tried it and if it really is effective. He claims it really sped up his computer, but I'm dubious. edit: here is a link http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Memory-...Fresh-RAM.shtml

I've used regcure (paid) for some time. There are a host of problems with it as mentioned above. Take it off, and if you must use a registry cleaner, try CC. But if you have norton 360 you shouldn't need any registry cleaner as it has a very good, safe registry cleaner. I use N360 and I can say RegCure bites the dust in comparison.

Thank you, Well, I have done many of these steps and suggestions outlined in your massive post. I appreciate the wealth of information here. I learned allot as I sifted through it over the last few days. However, the issue I seem to be having is the booting of Windows itself. It's just not pretty, If you have any ideas about how to make the transition smoother as Windows is loading that would be awesome. Thank you for everything. I have noticed some improvement with my computer. The staff here on this forum is so helpful.

Does anyone know if any work has been done detailing the security of each webrowser out? I am curious. It seems to me that Google Chrome is a bit less secure than some of the other browsers I've tried out.

I highly suggest using chkdsk. My computer is a little over one years old and I began noticing significant slow down. I ran chkdsk and I noticed a dramatic improvement. It is quite useful. However, be careful on how you use it, ensure as much as possible that your computer has a steady power supply during chkdsk as any interruptions to the process can and may cause some serious problems.

@ sartori: I did upgrade from vista. But this issue began several months after the upgrade. I might do a clean install if it bothers me still in a few months, but everything else is fine so I might just leave it. @Exile 360. Well,the computer is only one years old. I tend to backup everything on a regular basis, and i normally don't save much on the computer's harddrive. So, in the event of a failout, I think I'll be ok. Still, I would like to get this issue sorted out. But I won't do anything drastic unless I notice the computer laggin in other areas.

Good morning, I updated and flashed the BIOS with no real affect on performance. Although I did notice that since the BIOS upgrade, the initial start up of my computer has been slightly faster, though not really significant. I think I'm just missing the days when my computer was still new and all I had to do was hit the power button and the computer booted in less than 20 seconds. I suspect my hard drive is starting to feel its age, which might account for the choppy start up. Still, if you have any more suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Do you think I should update my BIOS as well? Also, I got this message as I was following the procedure. Should I downgrade my chip set drivers then?

Hello Exile, As requested, here is the info. speccy.zip

@ torontorian http://www.z-a-recovery.com/art-raw-filesystem.htm This link may help though it is a bit technical. I'm not sure if it completely applies in your case

Hello, A year ago I purchased a Dell Inspiron 1545 with Windows Vista SP1 Home premium installed. Back in October, I upgraded to W7 and I have no real major problem or complaints... However, Over the last 2 months something has been happening. It bears no impact on the functionality of the computer itself or the OS, but it's just annoying me. Before, when I would boot the computer, boot was clean, fast, and smooth. Now, the boot is not so fast, it can take upwards to a minute to boot and the boot sequence is choppy. For instance, it goes to the Starting Windows screen, and it takes forever here, at its worst 20 seconds. Than, when it passes this, the screen flashes black, grey, then goes back to black (like the ACDC song ). At this point, for a few seconds, about 15, it is just black and all i see is a cursor. Eventually, it goes to the Please wait page than to welcome. Sometimes, I don't even see please wait, it just goes straight to welcome. Once it loads the desktop, there is no smooth transition to the desktop. The screen goes black, stays black for a few seconds and than the desktop appears but in segments... It's not a big issue and the computer works smoothly after this, but I'm just getting a bit annoyed with it. Does anyone have any ideas what I can do to make the boot a little smoother? And should I start getting worried. Thanks.

Interesting, I've never even heard of HIPS before. Any good free HIPS software anyone recommends?

The Fresh RAM app looks cool, though it seems too good to be true. Anyone tried using it?

What exactly is this HIPS thing you guys keep mentioning? I see it all the time and I've read stuff online about it, but most of it is very technical? Can someone break it down for me?

@ AdvancedSetup Notepad eh? You must write a bajillion .bat files a week

Yeah, It seems that in the olden days of spyware terminator there were some problems with slow down and system hang ups but they seemed to have fixed allot of the issues with their latest update. I've only started using it myself. Generally, I find no impact on performance and it catches things MBAM and N360 miss so it's quite good. My only gripe with it is when you're actually opening the bugger it takes a little longer than it should, but once it's opened it works quite speedily. Have you tried Zone Alarm firewall? I've never used it, but my IT friend raves about it. Maybe you can give it a look. I believe it is free. Comodo is supposed to be fantastic as well.

Hey all, I just think it would be cool to post how you keep your computer secure. Feel free to post your current setup, or your ideal setup. I am running W7 fully patched, spyware terminator, MBAM pro, and N360.

RealPlayer is another fantastic media player.