Windows XP pro: Does not like to search

[omega_shadow]

Before I get my fat <AWLMST> out of here, I need some help with a problem in WinXP I have not been able to figure out.

 

I try not to spend alot of time in 'doze, but when I do load it up to use Dreamweaver and what not I get errors, and not the usual run of the mill built in errors.

 

When I atempt to use the search function in windows explorer I get a Error Report Box. You guys know the one. It gives you absolutely no information about the error, just that it wants to report it to daddy.

 

If you close, send or dont send the error report Explorer.exe restarts. If you ignore the error report completely and go on to the search it works just fine. In fact the whole computer works just fine with the exception of having an error report dialog that you have to move around all the time.

 

My first thought is Malware of some sort. So I fired up Avast!, A-Squared, and SpyBot-SD. A-S and SB found a few things, cookies and registry settings mostly, but nothing serious. Avast! came up clean. So now I am very confused.

 

This is a roughly new install of windows (about one month old). Even with how quickly registrys seem to get corrupted, that seems a bit much. I don't know enough about windows to track down the problem. Anyone got an idea of whats going on?

[Tony D]

Maybe the Event Viewer will shed light onto what's happening.

 

Go to Start / Control Panel and double click the ADMINSITRATIVE TOOL; then double click EVENT VIEWER and take a look around.

[omega_shadow]

Source: Application Error

Category: None

Type: Error

Event ID: 1000

 

Disc:

Faulting Application explorer.exe, version 6.0.2900.3156, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x0324d935

 

 

Puts me back where I was. No Clue what's going on. :(

 

Why cant windows simply output the file and line the error was encountered at like resonable OS's?

[Tony D]

I agree - the error message says nothing. And I have no clue either. Can someone else chime in here?

[AdvancedSetup]

If it's the one I think it is, it is a known issue. Microsoft has a patch for it. Basically if you can just go to the windows update site and do a scan and do all the critical updates and it should fix it.

 

If not or you can't run the window update then let us know and I'll see if I can track down the exact article number and you can download via Firefox.

[omega_shadow]

should be completely up to date, but with 15 critical windows updates a day, you never know. Running internment exploiter now. I will let you know if it fixes the problem.

 

EDIT: What do you know, 19 updates. Installing now. This means I got to restart this POS now? *Gets jumper cables*

[AdvancedSetup]

Okay, let us know if that fixed it or not.

 

Thanks

[omega_shadow]

Well, all updates installed and the system restarted. Explorer still gives me an error when attempting to search the file system

[AdvancedSetup]

Oh... I'm sorry. I read your post as Internet Explorer, not Windows Explorer (my fault).

 

Well that could prove to be quite a difficult issue to correct as many things could cause it.

It could be a corrupted font, a trojan on the system, some misconfigured items in the Registry.

 

Can probably only really offer the following which I assume you've probably already done.

 

CHKDSK C: /F

Delete all temporary files from %TEMP% and C:\WINDOWS\TEMP

Disable Antivirus/Anti-Malware programs and see if the issue still exists or not.

Disable Indexing

Disable any other indexers like the one from Nero

[omega_shadow]

Common mistake. Should have been more clear in my posts.

 

The only one I have not tried is disabling the indexing. Will try that now. Come to think about it, with....oh your god, 5 physical drives, (split into about 10 partitions) 3 large flash drives and various other storeage devices I hook to this thing, indexing would be a problem. Don't know why I didn't think of that before?

 

Going to take a while to turn indexing off on all the drives I got. Will get back with you to let you know if it works

[omega_shadow]

well, that didnt work. Any more ideas?

[AdvancedSetup]

No, not really. As said it could be so many things causing it. Depends on how much is really installed on that XP partition and if you really want to spend the time trying to fix it.

 

If there is not much data or stuff on it then it might be faster and easier to just move the data and re-install, or at least do some drastic recovery fixes.

 

May want to look at something like this

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install

or this type of repair

Scannow sfc (System File Checker)

[omega_shadow]

runing sfc now. I use linux 97.4% of the time anyways. I just wanted my trips into windows to be less... aggravating? I think that is the word? I just got everything installed and set up again on this system after I formatted it less then a month ago. I will just do my searches in linux *shrug* Thanx for trying though.

 

I got to thinking, I was a dick to you earlier. Consider this a little "thank you" for being the better man and not banning me when you saw this post

 

I noticed you don't have a banner for your site. I threw this together real fast with gimp, more like a proof of concept. If you like it, use it. If not let me know what you want and I will make it for you.

 

http://www.outpostpaintball.com/pchelpbanner.jpg

[AdvancedSetup]

Well thanks for the graphic but that would be up to the owner of the site, I just Mod here.

 

As for the new XP install, I can provide a scripted SystemState backup to run daily or at least a couple times a week that if something like this happened you could do a fast restore of the Registry back to the way it was.

 

Let me know if interested.

[omega_shadow]

Huh, for some reason I thought you were the site owner.

 

I got acronis lieing around somewhere, just never got around to setting it up yet.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

When you see this person, enlightenment will overcome you.

 

Nice banner by the way.

[JEBWrench]

And way to include your favourite penguin front and centre there, O_S. ;)