Compaq PC help pls

[13977]

Hi, im fixing a friends pc at the min, its a Compaq Presario running Win XP Home. I cant get task manager or msconfig to run, i assume this is a registry setting Compaq set, can any one give me so information on how/why they do this and how to resolve it, thanks in advance, Matt

[Panama Red]

I'm guessing your friend has a virus or trojan on board. Never heard of any manufacturers disabling msconfig or task manager. Do a free scan at

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

and see what that does for you. You may need to run Hijack This! to id the culprit but do the Housecall scan first. Also, have you run Adaware and Spybot? Need to do that to.

[scomac]

Are you in Administrator mode? I noticed when I went to an XP computer that I signed in as a guest, I was not able to get into those two things.

Scomac

[13977]

yer im logged in as an Admin account. Iv tryed scanning with Nortan Antivirus, Nortan Win Doctor and Adaware but not found anything. Im sure this is a reistry setting. thanks for posting.

[Rugpriest]

If you've tried scanning for adware and for viruses then try scanning with hijackthis and post the log here.

http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html

[Statica]

Originally Posted by 13977 yer im logged in as an Admin account. Iv tryed scanning with Nortan Antivirus, Nortan Win Doctor and Adaware but not found anything. Im sure this is a reistry setting. thanks for posting.

Yes it could be a registry setting, but odds are heavily stacked in favor of your PC being infected with a virus/trojan (see Panama Red's suggestion above). Just because you are running one antivirus does not mean that it is the most complete solution out there. The smart money is on confirming that you are virus free - use housecall and post hijack this log. Norton has been known to "miss" infections. It's just working the odds, if it was just your task manager not working, it could be a registry or program issue, but how about msconfig as well? Have you tried running regedit? Does it stay open?

[yellohut]

you should also try the online scan at trendmicro..
I have seen infected computers block the installed AV from detecting them.. especially if the definitions are out of date.