Tag Archives: Windows 7

C:\Windows\Explorer.exe is acting as a Virus, Windows 7

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Malware I hate it with a passion! The new malware coming out these days is extremely smart. Recently, I had the opportunity or maybe misfortune of having to try to remove some malware.

The customer contacted us and said his laptop had been running very slowly the past week or two. He told us the process, explorer.exe was hogging a lot of memory, sometimes up to 4 gigabytes of it!Explorer.exe Hogging Memory I connected and began troubleshooting his problem and soon came to the conclusion that malware was definitely the culprit for making his laptop run slowly. I will list my steps and what I tried, bear with me if I’m kind of scattered. I went down a lot of dead-end streets before killing the malware.

Step One: Download Process Explorer and Process Monitor. These tools were immensely helpful in identifying what processes were using up memory and processor.

I ran Processor Explorer and soon saw the parent Explorer.exe process had a sub process hiding underneath it called Explorer.exe. Continue reading →

Windows Failed to Start \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD 0xc000000f

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I ran into this issue the other day. It proved to be somewhat challenging to troubleshoot. This computer was running Windows 7 and had a RAID 1 configuration. This article will focus on this error from a RAID configuration standpoint. I will list the steps to troubleshoot and fix this issue. Below each step I will put a “from the field” section which will tell you how it went for me.

Windows Boot Manager Error

Step One: Make sure your Sata Configuration didn’t change in the motherboard BIOS. Make sure Intel Rapid Storage is enabled.

From the Field: The motherboard in the computer I troubleshot was a Gigabyte H87-D3H. For some reason the motherboard reverted to a backup of its settings. When the settings reverted, the Sata Configuration switched to ACHI and Intel Rapid Storage Technology was disabled. I turned the RAID back on and enabled the Intel Rapid Storage Technology.

Step Two: Boot on a Recovery disc. Continue reading →

Windows 7 Computer and Network Connections Freeze at Startup for 15 Minutes

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Problem: Whenever, I would turn this Windows 7 desktop computer on, it would freeze up. A little blue circle would spin and spin over the network connections (in the right corner of the task bar). The computer would be totally unusable for at least fifteen minutes. When I would come back to it a little later on it would work just fine. However, as soon as I would reboot, the computer and network connections would again freeze. I talked to the customer and he said he didn’t do much besides installing some Oki printer software. Here are a couple of the troubleshooting steps I tried.

  • I tried System Restore. It errored out on me and did not finish successfully.
  • I ran Malwarebytes, just in case this was virus related. The computer was fine.
  • I tried disabling a couple startup items and services. It  didn’t make a difference.
  • I ran a check disk on the hard drive and it came back clear.

However, I discovered that when I boot into safe mode with networking everything was fine. I decided to open “msconfig” and disable all services from starting.

I turned the computer on and it started just fine. I then enabled a few services at a time. I kept restarting, after enabling a few services. Each time it was fine, until I turned on the “server” service in Windows. The computer and network connections once again froze up.

Through some of my other research I found out that the server service and the print spooler service work together. However, the service server needs to start before the print spooler service does. I unchecked the print spooler and kept the server service checked for Continue reading →

Desktop does not load and only displays blue background after Windows 7 log on

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This morning our customer called me and said their computer was “blue screening”. When you hear someone is having a blue screen that is never good news, but I decided to try figuring it out. They told me the computer would start up just fine and would come up to the log on screen. Once they unlocked the computer and logged in, it would instantly “blue screen”.

I had the customer restart the computer and tap F8 until they got the “advanced boot options” in Windows 7. I had them select the option, “Safe Mode with Networking”. The computer booted up and our customer logged in just fine.

I connected with our remote program. I thought it might be just a graphics driver issue. I uninstalled the current graphics driver and installed a newer driver. I rebooted and to my chagrin nothing changed. I ran a Malwarebytes and Kaaspersky TDSSKiller scan. Malwarebytes found two small threats. I removed them. I also went into msconfig and disabled some of the startup items and services that weren’t necessary. I opened Event Viewer and checked on the logs. The logs didn’t tell me much. I rebooted the computer.

We let the computer start normally. I had the customer log into the computer and once again it “blue screened”. I questioned our customer a little more and she said it came up to a “blue screen” but the “blue screen” had no words on it. I became suspious that something else was wrong. I told her to go CTRL+ALT+DEL and let me know if anything came up. She listed the normal programs the come up in Windows 7. I told her to open Task Manager.  I Continue reading →

How to fix Printer Properties that are grayed out

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Today I was at a customer doing an onsite visit. I was working with a new printer they had just installed. I went to the advanced tab to change some settings and all of the printer settings were grayed out. I couldn’t make any changes. Printer Properties Grayed Out

However, the fix is really simple just go back to the General tabChange Printer Properties

and click Change Properties in the bottom left corner. The printer properties box will close and will reopen with administrator privileges. Now click on the advanced or port tab and you will be able to make changes since it opened the dialogue box with administrator privileges.

Note: If you are trying to change the properties on a printer that was shared from another computer, this isn’t possible. You need to go to the computer that the printer was shared from to be able to change the properties.

I hope this helps. This was posted by techspeeder