Disk Cleanup problem

[yak]

Since yesterday, when I try to initiate Disk Cleanup, it never finish its job. It continues to run forever and I have to shut it down manually. And when I do that, everything slows down considerably. Checking with win task manager, its CPU usage is 100%. I never had this problem before and am wondering if it's virus-related issue. I have EZ armour and regularly update anti-virus program. Thanks for any info.

[not important]

Do you have Spybot S&D and AdAware?

[Panama Red]

Agree with ni. Run Spybot and Adaware first. Or you may want to try running Disk Cleanup in Safe mode.

[DragonNOA1]

If it still doesn't work, Disk CleanUp just deletes temp files and internet files/programs. Since you can start Disk CleanUp, start it up to where you can view what you want to delete, but don't run the program. Instead goto "view files" at the bottom and delete all the files manually w/o letting windows do it for you. Easy enough. :)

[yak]

I do have AdAware and checked a few days ago and did not detect any. However, I just d/led AVG6.0 free version and it detected 1 virus (EZ anti-virus didn't find it though). I could only read 'downloader swizze..' part since AVG cleaned the bug withoug letting me know what or where it was. I'm still having disk cleanup problem.

[DragonNOA1]

Are Adaware, Spybot, and AVG fully updated? Run AVG again to make sure the virus is gone for good and/or try Housecall also for a second opinion.

Like I said earlier, for the time being just delete the files manually since Disk CleanUp doesn't work.

[yak]

AVG's latest update was 3/24/04 but I wasn't able to update somehow. Ez anitvirus and Adaware are fully updated.
Just ran AdAware and I got this;

Ad-aware 6: Ad-aware.exe No disk
There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive\Device\Harddisk1\DR3.

and I had to click continue to finish the scan. Found 5 autoquaranteed files. Should I delet them?

Xoftpy found 3 objects.
alexa data miner registry key minor anoyance
MSconnect malware registry key high threat
Mainpean dialer malware registry key high threat

MS connect is imbeded in netscape user trusted exteral applications adn Mainpean dialer is located as software/freeware. I have seen Ms connect and ignored this but I 've seen MainPean dialer for the first time with spybot.
I guess I should get rid of those three?

Anyway, how can I get Disk Cleanup to work again?
Also, I read that EZ antivirus inteferes with other antivirus programs. Would this cause any problem with AVG?

Thanks for reading my problem and answering.

[glc]

Disk Cleanup compresses files that it thinks you seldom use by default. Turn this option off.

Let any malware scanners that you use clean what it finds.

[yak]

How can I turn the option off? It doesn't go anywhere once it says 'it's scanning for old files. Only way I can completely stop is open up win task manager and end process CLEANMGR.EXE.

I guess my question is, is there anyway I can go back to way it used to work?

[eldon]

There used to be and maybe still is a program called cm diskcleaner that will clean up alot of needless stuff from your disk and when I used it I noticed that when I ran the disk cleanup option that it cleaned up pretty quickly after using the cm diskcleaner first.The other poster is correct that compressed files is whats slowing down your cleanup.If you want to try cm diskcleaner I forgot where its link was but am sure google or someone else here has a link to it.

[yak]

Funny thing is XoftSpy (I thought it was spybot s&d and d/led first) found 2 malwares. To get rid of them, I have to pay $49.95. Adware6 and Spybot S&D didn't find anything.

I have a nagging suspicion that my pc is infected with some kiind of virus but full scan of AVG6 and EZ armor (upto date)did not detect anything. So how can I verify whether I have a virus or not?

[Panama Red]

Go here and run a scan.

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_corp.asp

[yak]

Thanks, I'm gonna try it.

[glc]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812248

[yak]

Thank you for all you guys' help, especially glc.
After ridding old compressed file registry key, Disk Cleanup started to work again.

One more question though, will this deletion cause any significant change? I didn't notice anything other than seeing no old compressed file during Disk Cleanup.

[glc]

That's all it does - no longer compresses old files. I don't think this feature is useful anyway unless you have too small a hard drive.

[yak]

Mine's big enough for me, 40 gb. I clean my pc regularly and this was the first time I was infected with a virus (trojan, downloader.swizzor.G). Don't know how I got it though.