I (eek) have a serious system problem-how to find/fix it?

[faster]

I'm back with a question that only the king of geekdom can answer. Because I've been having serious problems of late (see my other posts), I found the site for pcpitstop (I believe it's owned by Windows Magazine), and to my delight they had a deep diagnostic program. It found an extremely serious problem. Trouble is, I can't understand the results, don't know where the problem is, nor do they even hint at how I should go about fixing this very serious problem it found. This is the text of their "autofix" program:

// List of directories to clean
var junk = [];

function AddJunk(name, dir)
{
dir = dir.replace(/\\$/, "");
if ( dir == sysdir | | dir == windir ) {
var msg = "This system has a serious configuration error!\n\n";
msg += "The directory for "+name+" is set to "+dir+", which is ";
msg += "a crucial Windows directory. Fix this immediately!\n\n";
msg += "Because of this problem, no changes will be made.";
wsh.Popup(msg,0,TITLE,16);
WScript.Quit(1);
}
junk[junk.length] = dir;
}
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" Guess I'm in trouble here. Even a dufus like me can figure that much.
The number of bytes in Drive C is misreported several times a day, requiring scandisk (the one in Windows does no more good), my Recycle Bin thinks C: has 1.99 gigs when it's 6+ (6.45 I think), and the computer has developed a personality. It's like a Christian who thinks Moses presented the world with the Ten Suggestions; I click on things and the computer lets me see them if it is in the mood. Or I can get two copies of the same directory up at once. Icons leak. Memory boosters only eat RAM and do little good. Everything is slow, freezes are common, and sometimes the CPU lights blink like mad for a long time when I haven't asked it to do anything at all. Tomorrow it may even decide to bite my toes. Nothing surprises me any more.
So I promptly searched my entire system for any directory with "name" or "dir" in the title. Nada. I searched both my old hard drive and my almost-full 6+gig hard drive. Nada. How can I correct a misnamed directory that doesn't exist at all?
Can ANYBODY out there give me some clues? I'm amazed that my computer still works at all, much less lets me get on the Web to even ask this question. The system runs EXTREMELY slowly most of the time. I have some big downloaded demo games (Pharoah, particularly) which freeze every time I play, but only after I've gotten my community extremely full and busy - just at the point where I am almost completed with it.
Some files that result in conflicts are mmtask, rundll32 and msgsrv, as well as others. Sometimes the Web runs almost normally, and other times it's like molasses in January. I NEVER renamed any directory "DIR," nor do I remember ever seeing one called "NAME." But other people use my computer, the worst being children under the age of six, who can't resist, in spite of dire threats and cajoling to keep their hands off. They can get into the system and make changes in the time it takes me to take a whiz. What is a dummy supposed to do? All suggestions short of "childicide" will be welcome. They're too cute to kill. Besides, I can do a fine job of messing up my computer, even without their help.
If you can help walk me through first FINDING this problem and then doing something about it, I'll nominate you as King of the Geeks, and vote for you too.

[eyeball]

i think the drive is still not fat32. (=
refer to your previous post for my answer.
http://www.speedguide.net/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000794.html

also you can check to see if your drive is or isnt fat32 by opening my computer, right-clicking the C: drive, left-click properties, then you should see where it says File System.. should say FAT16 or FAT32. If its FAT16, run the fat32 converter (refer to the other post). and i think this will solve most, if not all, your other problems as well.

also the thing with the 'dir' and 'name' are simply variables in the code, meaning they can be a value of anything.. its just programming code, likely in C++ because of the \n's. but if you want to copy or write down the error that you get on the site and post it here, feel free to and i'll try my best to decipher it. (=


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[This message has been edited by eyeball (edited 10-12-2000).]

[Sid]

Boot it into safe mode and see if it still has the problem. If it does then you most likely have a virus. If it doesn't then go into msconfig and disable every startup item including autoexec.bat and config.sys, then go into device manager and disable all but the needed drivers including the video driver. If the problem goes away start putting them back one at a time till you find the culprit. Another thing to do is give it the three finger salute(ctrl+alt+delete)and see what else is running. Kill all but explorer. One other thing is go into run and type SFC and have it checked for altered files.

[LoachDuke]

Hey,

Guess if childicide is out of the question then so it suicide, lol http://www.speedguide.net/ubb/wink.gif. It is probably a virus, or some reeeaaaaallllly flaky hardware. Or, the kids did some ir-repairable damage to the computer. You can try all the software under the sun to fix that or do the following:

I suppose the best thing to do is start anew. Get NT sp5.01 or Win2000 and install it. Set up multiple users, and limit thier permissions on the computer (ie, view files only, no deleteing or adding, no hardware settings, no internet or certain sites, and no downloading of files from net. You, as the Admin can add/remove files and programs, but the little ones can only play games, draw pictures, or surf. The great thing about playing with NT/2000 is that it will bring you up to the current PC security standards very quickly, without having to take courses. You can always ask here if you get stuck somewhere.

Anything else would just bring you back here again.


If you like my idea then name me "King of Loach's". :P