Windows 7 Laptop acting up, virus? DLL isue? help please

[Phillip Loftin]

Hello all,

I am new to this site so if this is in the wrong forum I apologize and move it is possible. Laptop has been acting up over the last couple of months.

First off I run Windows 7 home pro on a Sager system (2 years old) and AGV antivirus a the time, now McAfee antivirus. I have ran MalwareBytes, CCLeaner, and SpeedyPCPro. All seem to find minor issues and have corrected them but none tackle the real issues listed below.

When this all started I went back to try and go to an earlier restore point which I know I had put several in when I purchased the laptop and every month afterwards automatically. Well they were all gone. They never existed according to the restore option.

Issues:

1. About half the time when I try to open any exe file from desktop and most from C drive, I receive a "These files can't be opened. Your Internet security settings prevented one or more files from being opened." I change the settings in IE11 and reboot or sometimes just reboot and it goes away then returns on next boot up

2. When trying to download files such as cleaners and antivirus, I click on the ""do you want to open or save file" I click on open and nothing happens. No acknowledgment or confirmation. I can save the files sometimes and run from the installer download. Other times I have to move it from another computer using thumb drives.

3. Some programs will not run. Eve Online is probably the one that I first noticed not able to run. Eve tech support could not come to a resolution.

4. I have been tempted to wipe the drive and start over but I have never done this without a windows disk and my system come without one (I have made the repair disc). Please let me know what to do if I have to go this route.

5. Computer processes seem much slower than normal.

I am not computer ignorant but I need more help than my amateur level can provide. Any help would be appreciated.

NavyPhil

 

[Fixer1234]

1. About half the time when I try to open any exe file from desktop and most from C drive, I receive a "These files can't be opened. Your Internet security settings prevented one or more files from being opened." I change the settings in IE11 and reboot or sometimes just reboot and it goes away then returns on next boot up

This is a strange combination, like associating a browser as the default application for running exe files. If you just try to run an exe file from the desktop, you shouldn't see any message about the internet. What do you mean when you differentiate the desktop from the C drive? Typically, the desktop is on C:. It could be that things aren't clear due to terminology. Can you explain this one in more detail?

2. When trying to download files such as cleaners and antivirus, I click on the ""do you want to open or save file" I click on open and nothing happens. No acknowledgment or confirmation. I can save the files sometimes and run from the installer download. Other times I have to move it from another computer using thumb drives.

The Open option in the open vs. save dialog in your browser mainly refers to files that are used by passing them to another program, like viewing a file. It generally does not support running an executable file from there. To run a downloaded program, you generally have to save it and then run it from the hard disk.

3. Some programs will not run. Eve Online is probably the one that I first noticed not able to run. Eve tech support could not come to a resolution.

Not enough information here to go on. Could be that if we clear up some of the other questions, this one will take care of itself, or at least be clearer what the problem is.

4. I have been tempted to wipe the drive and start over but I have never done this without a windows disk and my system come without one (I have made the repair disc). Please let me know what to do if I have to go this route.

There should be a recovery partition that lets you restore the computer to factory configuration rather than doing a new install with a Windows disk. The repair disk should also let you run certain kinds of diagnostics and repairs.

Start by running the different AV programs and rerun them until they each find no problems. Then run sfc /scannow in the start menu Run window. There are many non-destructive things to try before you take the step of starting over.

5. Computer processes seem much slower than normal.

All kinds of things can cause this. It can cover the gamut from running more things than your hardware can support, to the computer making excessive use of a hard disk swap file, to too many background processes, to conflicting background processes, to problem web sites with excessive advertizing or popups or embedded videos, to problem browser add-ons, to blocking ads on web sites that insist on displaying them, to problems with your flash video player, to having more than one AV program running, to corruption of something in Windows, to corrupted or incompatible software, to malware, to registry errors, etc. Many things that affect speed are controlled by settings. There are some diagnostics you can do to rule out certain classes of problems or to find a specific problem. You can also spend weeks tweaking your computer to improve its speed if there is nothing malfunctioning.

 

[Phillip Loftin]

This is a strange combination, like associating a browser as the default application for running exe files. If you just try to run an exe file from the desktop, you shouldn't see any message about the internet. What do you mean when you differentiate the desktop from the C drive? Typically, the desktop is on C:. It could be that things aren't clear due to terminology. Can you explain this one in more detail?

My apologies. I mean I can click on the shortcut on the desktop and it will error out and then sometimes I can go tot he exe in the C drive and it will work loading, Not very often though.



The Open option in the open vs. save dialog in your browser mainly refers to files that are used by passing them to another program, like viewing a file. It generally does not support running an executable file from there. To run a downloaded program, you generally have to save it and then run it from the hard disk.

I should have said it states do you want to run or save the file.



Not enough information here to go on. Could be that if we clear up some of the other questions, this one will take care of itself, or at least be clearer what the problem is.

I am not sure if you know what Eve online is but it is an online space game. It suddenly stopped working about 2 months ago and I jumped through all the hoops to correct this using their help desk and I included this just as another issue that could have helped. Basically the game will load to the online server, act like it is loading, but never launches. This one is the least of my worries.



There should be a recovery partition that lets you restore the computer to factory configuration rather than doing a new install with a Windows disk. The repair disk should also let you run certain kinds of diagnostics and repairs.

Start by running the different AV programs and rerun them until they each find no problems. Then run sfc /scannow in the start menu Run window. There are many non-destructive things to try before you take the step of starting over.

I have used the repair disc to run the options for repairs and nothing was found to resolve the issues.
I have ran as many AV and mal/spy ware programs as I could find but I will run the sfc/scannow and see what comes up. Thank you.

All kinds of things can cause this. It can cover the gamut from running more things than your hardware can support, to the computer making excessive use of a hard disk swap file, to too many background processes, to conflicting background processes, to problem web sites with excessive advertizing or popups or embedded videos, to problem browser add-ons, to blocking ads on web sites that insist on displaying them, to problems with your flash video player, to having more than one AV program running, to corruption of something in Windows, to corrupted or incompatible software, to malware, to registry errors, etc. Many things that affect speed are controlled by settings. There are some diagnostics you can do to rule out certain classes of problems or to find a specific problem. You can also spend weeks tweaking your computer to improve its speed if there is nothing malfunctioning.

 

[Fixer1234]

The only thing I can think of that would cause this is a bad shortcut. Two common ways this happens:

1. You create a shortcut and then change the name of the program it points to.
   
   
2. You create a shortcut and then move the program it points to to another directory.

 

[Pauli]

When this all started I went back to try and go to an earlier restore point which I know I had put several in when I purchased the laptop and every month afterwards automatically. Well they were all gone. They never existed according to the restore option.NavyPhil

Fixer is quite exhaustive, all I have to point out is that when you go to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Recovery, there is a tick box for "Show more recovery points", down left. The effect is as shown in the appendix - upper picture is the typical and the lower one shows with "Show more..." --- it certainly shows more. In my case it went to February 16, 2013. And if you go backwards, do consider the fact that you need to re-update your Windows security files. I f you go further back, do it step by step, updating slowly, max. perhaps 5 updates at a time - then reboot, check everything works, then continue.

Not saying this will solve your problem. But I sure hope you get it done. In your case I would say programs are affected.