Virus, or something else?

Question

My computer is slow, becoming un-responsive, and weird things keep happening to my computer.

1.Whenever I look on another computer it used to show my computer on there, but show it twice, under 2 different "Workgroup's" MSHOME and WORKGROUP.
2.The computer is slow a lot of the time when doing things regularly.
3.Suddenly my mouse and keyboard become un-responsive, as does the whole computer, but it comes back. During this, all my usb devices seem to power down, the keyboard's lights stay on however, it is not usb, but still un-responsive, but all keyboard actions while this happens still happen after it becomes responsive again. Also, I couldn't shut down properly, as then it never became responsive again.
5.Activity light seemed to always be on.

More details are that #1 stopped after reboot.
The second thing still kept happening, the slowness stayed, but seems to have dissipated now, after the computer has been on a while.
The third thing hasn't happened again yet, but i haven't tried to power down once again either.
The fifth thing seems to have stopped for the most part.

6.This folder in my shared docs folder keeps coming back, named "microsoft" and sometimes comes back while my computer continues to run. and inside that folder is a "IndentityCRL" folder. Inside there is a "production" folder. inside there, there are no files or anything however. I even looked for hidden files and all, nothing.
so the full location is - C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\microsoft\IdentityCRL\production
capitalization and all is accurate and correct, same goes for spelling.

Also, the list of programs I have downloaded, that are started right now, or have been started lately.

http://kociemba.org/cube.htm Download link on left - not sure if its clean
Windows Defender (Microsoft Website)
Windows Live Beta (mail, messenger, photo gallery)
Microsoft Visual Basic 2008 (Microsoft Website)
Updates(Windows Update Website) - besides the search update, search 4.0 i think.

Windows XP Home Edition SP3 - IE7

BYOND (www.byond.com) - should be clean - game site.

surfing the web - IE7 - when fully updated - java, shockwave, flash, installed. not even silverlight.

also, i received a few files from people, which could have been possible viruses, but windows defender didn't alert me, and all the files work as expected, and also, i know the people i received files from, so i dought they would send me a virus.

Answer 1

first you do this.

run ccleaner and clean your pc,then run MVregclean to clean your registry safely. now in safe mode F8 run malwarebytes anti-malware complete scan and delete everything it finds ,then run SUPERAntispyware and do the same thing . go to normal boot and defrag your disk. that should do.

f

Answer 2

2

Answer 3

The thing about computers... is that if your computer starts slowing down, its next to impossible to narrow down the underlying cause of the problem. There are an infinite number of reasons why your computer could be running at lower speeds than when it's fresh.



Instead of worrying about all these things that are going wrong... think about it this way. When is the last time you redid your system? When is the last time you defragged your harddrive(s)? When is the last time you cleaned your registry? When is the last time you ran a disk utility to cleanup cache files and temp directories?



Any Windows machine WILL slow down over time, no matter what you do. Even the most avid PC users will tell you, that it's inevitable. Once in awhile... you need to back up your data and redo your system. If you do not know how to do this... you'll want to look into it. If you're lucky enough to have a package computer (Dell, HP, Compaq) then you most likely have a recovery disk somewhere that you can run that will restore your computer to factory settings.



All in all, you'll need either the original OS disk, or recovery disks to reformat your system and start from scratch... install good anti-virus/anti-spyawre applications, all your updates, do your defrags and disk cleanups regularly and you won't have to redo your system as often.



Hope that helps.

Answer 4

Do you have a anti virus program ?

What other anti spyware programs are you running along side Windows Defender ?



Windows Defender is a poor anti spyware program with real time protection.

Windows Live Beta - Beta means its not been tested yet.



E mail me if you require more help.

Answer 5

format hd :]