I can't open ANY applications except for Firefox on my computer!!!!

Question

My computer has been running extremely sluggish lately and the only thing I can manage to open is Firefox!!! Even then it takes about 5 minutes for it to load up! I have T1 internet connection just so you know it's not that fast but it shouldn't be as slow as dial-up!!! When I download things, usually takes only a few seconds, but when I try to open applications on my computer it takes forever to open up Firefox and other applications don't work anymore!!! My computer has suddenly gone slow it is a Windows XP 2003 computer and recently it has gotten worse and worse just today I have been experiencing this problem it appeared all of a sudden and I checked Windows Task Manager and I couldn't find any spyware/adware anywhere on system processes! Should I get a new computer or what do i do??

I don't to reinstall my OS because it is too difficult to get back the things that I worked three months to retrieve since our computer crashed in January from a trojan horse my computer has gone from blazing fast in 2003 to ultra slow in 2008 sorry if I don't choose a best answer I may not be able to get back onto Firefox for quite a while hopefully I can

Answer 1

Usually caused by malicious codecs that antivirus programs will not remove, and in most cases don't find them either.

Download and execute each of the following:

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware:

http://www.download.com/Malwarebytes-Ant...

Download, install, update and select Quick Scan.

Remove all infections that it finds after scan.

Spybot S&D:

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/downl...

Download, install, update and Immunize, then click 'Check for problems' then when complete select all and then 'Fix Checked'

Spyware Doctor Free Basic Edition - Realtime monitoring:

http://pack.google.com/intl/en/pack_inst...

Its free with Google pack, untick all boxes except Spyware Doctor. Download install, update and run.

Answer 2

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Download that, install it. Run a quick scan, if it finds anything, do a full scan afterwords.

Then or alternativly, you can try going to star/run and then type msconfig and hit enter. Click the start up tab, click disable all, exit and restart. It may mess with your settings of what starts up a bit. But you can go bad and tweak that later.  

Answer 3

It certainly sounds like you have been infected with some kind of malware, so there are several things you must do. Unfortunately, if you find one infection, it is highly likely you have another one. A virus, trojan or worm are all different types of infections/malware and there are some great FREE programs that can help you.

First, clean up (delete) your cookies, temp files and temporary internet files. I prefer to use Ccleaner to do this, rather than the built-in DISK CLEANUP, as I feel it does a much more thorough job - for example, it will clean out the index files on your next reboot.

If you want to use Disk Cleanup, you can find it if you:

- Double-Click on My Computer to open it up

- RIGHT-click on your C: drive

- Choose PROPERTIES and then click on the DISK CLEANUP button

- When done, reboot your computer.

Delete these files daily or run Ccleaner every day right before you shut your computer down.

2 - You should also have a good anti-virus program to help protect your computer. AVG FREE is an excellent anti-virus program. You might also choose Avast or Avira, both also free programs.

3 -Since NONE of the anti-spyware or anti-adware programs are 100% accurate in finding and removing spyware, you need at least two programs which you will run one after the other, not at the same time.

There are three excellent free ones:

- Spybot, Search and Destroy

- Ad-Aware

- Spyware Blaster

You will need to download, install, update (and IMMUNIZE in Spybot) and run them, one at a time. Be careful with the NAME of these programs - there are "look-alikes" with very similar names, that are in fact spyware themselves! Reboot after you install each one!

After this current infection is cleared up, be sure to run both of the above programs at least once a week if you are on the internet frequently and/or like to download music or files.

NOTE: Some infections prevent your from downloading the above programs. You may have to use a clean computer to download the programs and copy them to a thumb drive or CD. Then transfer the install files to the infected computer and run.

--Occasionally you will not be able to run these programs without being in SAFE MODE.  To get there, reboot your computer and tap the F8 key, repeatedly until a menu comes up.  You want to choose SAFE MODE WITH NETWORKING.

4 -You should also have a good firewall to help protect your computer. Zone Alarm makes a totally free version (watch you don't download the 30-day free trial of the paid version). You can download this from the manufacturer at zonelabs dot com

HTH : )

Good luck!

PS - Most of the above programs can be found at www.download.com