Help Please - Slow Laptop

Old_Skool

Hi,


I'm having trouble sorting out a friends slow laptop. I have tried the usual tricks and run ccleaner, malwarebytes and made sure all updates have been downloaded.

I cannot run Hijackthis - everytime I run the program I get a warning saying that the system had denied write access to the host files - it goes on to say on vista run as administrator.
The problem is that there isn't an administrator log in set up??

If you carry on past the warning no 'fix's' are carried out also you cannot generate a log file - you just get a blank notepad.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm now stumped.


The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1545 running Vista SP1.
CPU-2.00GHz RAM-1.00GHZ
Running up to date Macfee security center

Many thanks in advance

closed

uninstall mcafee, switch to avast 6 free and windows firewall, disable windows defender realtime scanning, install cleanmem, install and run startuplite. service pack is out of date

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2436849

instructions for hijackthis

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=43830400&postcount=22

alternatively, the ultimate solution is to backup data, and restore to factory defaults using factory restore partition, the latter bit takes 10 minutes

RussJK

Old_Skool wrote: »

I cannot run Hijackthis - everytime I run the program I get a warning saying that the system had denied write access to the host files - it goes on to say on vista run as administrator.
The problem is that there isn't an administrator log in set up??

If you carry on past the warning no 'fix's' are carried out also you cannot generate a log file - you just get a blank notepad.
Many thanks in advance

Shouldn't be using 'Fixed checked' unless you know how to use the tool. Administrator is a privilege level, not a name for the account.

Best to use the portable Hijackthis file:
http://www.trendmicro.com/ftp/products/hijackthis/beta/HijackThis.exe

Stick it on the desktop, then hold down LEFT SHIFT and RIGHT CLICK on it to Run as Administrator. Do system scan and save log, and it should work okay.

Might be safer for you to use MSCONFIG instead and just untick entries.

Give HitmanPro a go as well.

Old_Skool

Many thanks 'Closed', I'm having a read now.

Many thanks 'RussJK' - I was trying to fix one entry I know is wrong before generating the log to post. I'd forgotten you need to left shift as well as right click on the icon to open at administrator level.

Thanks again

stilltheone

Vista with 1GB RAM is not ideal. Get him to stick another 1GB RAM module in once it's cleaned up.

eyeinthesky

Bet it goes faster as soon as you remove Mccrapafee lol

Old_Skool

Thanks everyone for your replies, SP2 seems to have resolved many of the issues. I had to download SP2 from the microsoft site as it wasn't being offered as an update.

Cheers

closed

sp2 is unlikely to speed anything up, if you want to be sure it's running as fast as possible post the hijackthis log

Old_Skool

Thanks Closed but the laptop went back to the owner earlier. I did run a hijackthis log and fixed two entrys which had no target, no file after googling them.
SP2 seemed to improve things, it seemed less 'buggy', didn't hang so much.

I'll know during the week if everything is still okay, if there are still problems I'll post a log.

Thanks again for your help.