explorer.exe 100% cpu usage

[sonik]

Win XP Pro SP 1 starts up fine, all programs are working fine except for one... Windows Explorer. When I open Windows Explorer, explorer.exe's cpu usage goes up to 98+% and just hangs, I've given up waiting after 10 mins. I kill the process, start explorer.exe again, and everything runs fine... until I try to open Windows Explorer again.

I screwed up and inadvertly installed some software trying to get entry to a web page, you know a window pops up in IE saying you need this and this to continue. Well, I clicked yes and immediately I see an .inf install a .cab. I think it was the roings "search engine enhancer" and I had a new toolbar called sitesearch or simplesearch.

Anyway, a couple of the programs were named something like apropos_client.exe and optimizer.exe and they tried to access to net but Zone Alarm stopped them. I ended the related processes in Task manager. I ran Ad-aware, Hijack this, Spybot and removed anything that looked questionable. I cleaned up my startup items in msconfig, did a full scan with Norton AV 2004 and another online scanner. I ran sfc, system file checker, and it didn't report anything. I have all the updates from Windows Update.

Any ideas?

 

[amdskip]

If system restore is turned on it might be your only hope without formatting.

 

[Dundain]

I have to agree with amdskip. I think at that point your pretty much looking at a reinstall. Whatever spyware you had did some ugly damage to Explorer. I had the same problem a year or so ago and could never get it fixed.

 

[sonik]

Luckily I do have system restore on and was able to get everything working.

 

[boran]

next time take some time to actually read the popup stuff, I know u can cous u read previous posts.

 

[sonik]

moron, i meen boran, next time u comming over here to fix compuuter

 

[boran]

Originally posted by: sonik
moron, i meen boran, next time u comming over here to fix compuuter

sorry if you considdered that harsh, but clickhappy ppls are a direct threat to me and everyone else on the internet. (spam, virusses, but mainly spam) so either get it stuffed in yer head to watch out a bit or get off the internet and make it a safer place.

 

[gurpstar]

hm...i had similar problem. explorer was running at 100%. i ran a spyware removal program...brain dead and cant remember which one, anyways, i was deleting the instances one by one, was on about 15 of 200+ (200+? i had none two weeks when checked with a diff app) and my comp rebooted and never came back. i noticed the files were taking long to delete, was starting to worry at the exact time the system power cycled itself, like it could feel my panic. upon boot, error message displays "could not locate xyz.dll (braindead again, the .dll filename did end with an L, may have been same one you were missing.) reading your post i noticed some similarities..i haad been running a lot of same progs on my system, as follows..
-ZoneLabs firewall
-ad-aware
-hijack
-spybot
I attemted to use my DISE restore drive, nothing, come to find out whatever malicious code raped me changed my backup drive volume label, leaving it undetected by software on multiple boot CD's and diskettes. Ended up using a Win98 install CD to load a needed file giving me the ability to rename the drive label. I was also running SP1, although an update to beta 2 had failed recently which may have played into this mess too. I suspect the key to this garble is in that last Spyware remover i was using...as soon as my brain figures out how to reboot itself ill post the name and see if anyone else has had similiar nitemares. also very suspect is that ad-aware prog..it said my system was clean 2 weks prior, which should not be right because grokster was installed (i did have spy-killer patch installed on it and had firewalled any suspect files trying to access network)