Computer programs are barely running

Something is seriously wrong with my computer. Every program I run seems to be going corrupt. Everytime I run IE, Firefox, Orange Box, Oblivion, antivirus programs, anti-adware programs, or anything else, something goes wrong. I keep getting error messages, and every program I try seems to crash after a few minutes of use. I'm lucky to be able to run IE long enough to post this in fact. Whats happening and what do I do?

 

Scanned for Spyware, Viruses, and Registry Errors ?

 

why don't you reinstall the whole thing?don't forget to back up the data though....

 

Also check for hard drive errors; your hard drive may be about to take the Big Spin, and may be generating bad sectors that are causing corruption in your files.

 

I cant really scan for stuff. My adware program wont run, my virus definitions wont upgrade, and I havent tried spyware programs, but I'm not optimistic. I cant reinstall because my computer is a Sony, and I never made a backup disk.

And how do I check the HDD for that Shyster?

 

Which HDD is it ? Check in Device Manager....

 

I have an added symptom. It appears the problems are isolated to my user. The other account works fine. Whats up with that?

 

if its only your user sounds like a virus that hasnt gotten to the other users... do diagnostics on the other users.

 

I'm not using a Windows machine and couldn't remember the exact procedure. Try this.

 

Go to Computer, right click on your c:\ drive (or whatever the partition with your windows installation is labeled) and go to Properties, then click on the Tools tab. Under Error Checking, click the Check Now button.

Check the boxes for "Automatically fix file system errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors." Click Start. Windows should tell you you cannot check your disk while it's in use, so then click the "Schedule disk check" button, reboot your computer and chkdsk will run.

And that's how you can check your hard drive for errors. My explanation assumes you have Vista. If you don't the process is pretty much the same for XP.

However, you said the problems are isolated to your user account. That sort of sounds like it could be a virus or something of that nature. Try backing up your personal data and deleting your account/profile and create a new one. If that doesn't work, format your hard drive and just completely start over. Solves (almost) all problems

 

Two possibilities: bungled user configuration, or virii - more likely than not, virii. If you cannot get anything to scan when booting from the hdd, you may have to either get a bootable CD/DVD that will run a scanner for you, like the ultimatebootCD (google for it) or else take the hdd out, stick it into an external USB enclosure, and hook it up to another computer that as an A/V/spyware scanner - since the drive's in the external enclosure, it's treated as a passive data store and not a system drive (just to be careful though, please, please don't boot the other machine up with the USB connected), and won't infect the other computer unless you intentionally execute something on it. Once you've done that, scan the hdd and see what pops up.

 

Sounds like the hard drive or ram going bad to me.

 

If that's the case then boot up in safe mode and run adaware, antivirus, and disk defrag/scan disk. Create your recovery disks while you are at it.

 

Could you post the error log?