Cousin's computer

ilikemittens · 06-09-2005, 12:55 PM

I was over at my cousin's house the other day and he told me that his printer stopped working (not printing anything). So I was like OK well let's just reinstall it and see if that helps. So I go back to his computer, turn it on, and it takes FOR-E-VER to boot up. Then when it finally DOES come to the desktop, everything is running super super slow. I go to click the start menu and waited about a minute to see it. No programs would open, no folders, nothing.

So I restarted it and it came up a lot faster and I didn't have to wait forever for the start menu BUT, programs and folders still would not open. At that point I didn't want him to think I broke it (he had left for work) so I wrote him a note telling him what it was doing and then when he got back that night he called and told me he was computerless.

My first thought was a virus. I don't know though. I know he's one of those people that has a ton of junk on his comp that he needs to get rid of. Oh, and the 2 times I booted up there was a pop up at the desktop that said "Error: couldn't run (Something to do with WildTangent).dll" Does anyone have any idea what could be going on? I know when Chem gets here we're gonna go over and he'll format and reinstall windows for him, but I'd like for my cousin to be able to get his pictures, music, and list of programs off of it before. But as of right now it's looking like he can't even open a folder. :\

Any help is appreciated. Hopefully I gave you enough to chew on.

NiRvAnA · 06-09-2005, 01:23 PM

Format...

Take the hd to some special place that can rip the data for ya, i did that once... dam them people rule... they got **** load of stuff off, wasn't cheap thou.

MeTaL · 06-09-2005, 02:29 PM

If you really want to reimage, just slave that drive in another PC and copy the data off it.
I would run Adaware from Lavasoft to look for MALWARE(it is likely the problem)
How much space does he have left on HDD? If it is getting low, it will run extremely slow as well.
Run Checkdisk, look for disk errors.

I'd bet Adaware will find a crap load of stuff and speed things up if he has lots of space avaialbe on the drive.

MeTaL · 06-09-2005, 02:34 PM

Wildtangent.dll is likely something that a spyware program installed, it was removed, but the line in the Run key in registry still references it. If htat is the case, you can simply delete the key.

START with Adaware.... Let us know.

RUN key is located at

HKey_local_machine\software\microsoft\windows\curr entversion\run

{OF}RKT · 06-09-2005, 02:49 PM

Wildtanget was associated with WinAmp. They made those cool 3D screensavers and plugins for Winamp.

Do you use Winamp Metal or have ever installed it?

MeTaL · 06-09-2005, 02:55 PM

Did some more searching and wildtangent stuff gets installed with AIM too.

I have an old version of winamp on my pc i think(maybe not, since i reimaged, may not have it on again)

Cheese · 06-09-2005, 03:19 PM

wildtangent is spyware and it's installed for many online 3d gfx things, hence winamp and aim...but it is spyware as well from what i've heard

{OF}Malicious Assault · 06-09-2005, 04:16 PM

I have no clue

but you could try a basic boot up with only the op sys starting.

{OF}Flying_Dutchman · 06-09-2005, 04:23 PM

Interesting, didn't know wildtangent was spyware.

There goes that Christmas Dancer Winamp Visualization to the trash......

{OF}Blong · 06-09-2005, 04:59 PM

yup wildtangent is spyware. has been ever since it came out

. btw to get back on topic

you could try booting into safe mode and then running adaware or some other spyware proggy. that should get you to a point to where you can boot windows normally. however you will and should run adaware 3 or 4 times before you consider it clean. then run a virus scan

.