various little problems with vista!

G

geodeath

New Member
Hi all,

i am having some problems with vista lately.
Its not something huge and i am heading towards a system format anyway, but i am curious as to what is the source of the problem...

problems i ve seen so far (might be more, yet undiscovered):


  1. Cannot go to the computer properties window through the My Computer->Right click->properties. I have to go through the control panel, then system. Else, all i get is nothing. I just click on properties and nothing comes up.
  2. I cannot go into the device manager in any way or from any link. The only way to go to the device manager is to type the name of the file directly into the searchbox. One noteworthy addition here is that when trying to go to the device manager, i get an error stating that it cannot find the file C:\Windows\\system32\\blahblah.somefile. Notice the double slashes here.. Seems weird.
  3. When i get new mail in gmail, (and running google talk at the same time) i click on the mail icon of the program so it will popup a new browser window with the new mail opened up. This wont happen anymore. Nothing happens when clicking on it.
  4. The same happens when right clicking and choosing "open containing folder" in any torrent in utorrent. If i double click or choose open on DIRECTLY a file from the filelist it executes it, but it will not open the location when tried from the torrent name in the list.
  5. When trying to search through the searchbox in the start menu, if i click the "search everywhere" link, all i get is a "windows cannot find 'search:query="blah"' " type of error.
  6. For some weird reason, flashget stopped working with the infamous "failed to create empty document" error. After trying what the developer says to overcome this problem (deleting the downloads database or restoring from a backup) it still cannot start giving the same error. Installing/uninstalling/reinstalling does not solve the problem.
These come to mind and so far, i have scanned the computer with kaspersky (bought license), malware bytes antimalware, spybot (also have the immunization setup) and cc cleaner. All of these do not show something specific as the reason. To tell you the truth i am ready to restart with the vista repair cd in the drive so to try that as well but i thought of asking first.
Generally, when i have issues like that, i always find solutiong on the net but no matter how hard i tried, i just couldnt find answers for even a single one of them.

Thanks for any help in advance, i know these errors are pretty generic and this is exactly why they drive me crazy. :tongueout:

George
 
Hi George, welcome to NST.
When I started to read your list, I immediately thought "malware", but I see you've had the same thought and had a pretty good look around.
I had a Windows ME system in which various features failed to appear or work properly, though the system was still perfectly useable without them. It was so long ago now that I can't remember exactly how it all started, but I think bad ATi graphics drivers, multiple installs/uninstalls, various system restores related to sorting the graphics, inserted the thin end of the wedge, and I continued to use the PC for at least a year in its restricted feature mode because all my important stuff was still OK, and I just learned to work around or do without.
No amount of digging around could ever determine the slightest thing wrong with the system, though there was obviously something black deep in the heart of the OS.
Eventually circumstances, (a bad WUD) caused me to contact MS, and though they fixed the immediate problem, they sent me an accumulated WUD CD and advised a fresh install.
When I bit the bullet (I had about 60-70 3rd party apps to reinstall too), and did a clean install, all the old features I'd almost forgotten about, reappeared.
The MS man said to me "Installations always degrade over time - It's always a good idea to have a "spring clean" periodically and start again with a nice clean OS"
I suspect it's connected with Windows obsession with loading so much crap into the registry, instead of the nice old-fashioned "keep all the info in the program" approach.
I haven't had similar degradation in Vista (yet ! - fingers crossed), but I'm willing to bet that no matter how hard you search for a rational explanation, you're going to end up resorting to the "spring clean" in the end.
Stick around for Mak to appear though, he's a "Hijack This" expert, and might be able to detect something that you haven't spotted hiding away in your system
 
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