Need some help please

[infinitycure]

Recently my computer has been slowing down more and more. Yesterday it was almost completely standstill. I also noticed that a little awhile ago after I got IE 7.0, it to runs rather slow and hogs the RAM. I did all of the scans and followed the "before posting" instructions. And no matter what I do I can't get ctfmon.exe to stop working, I tried deleting it and disabling it. None of the scans found anything though. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[OEM_guy]

ctfmon.exe is part of MS Office
FAQ for ctfmon can be found at, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/282599

[jholland1964]

OEM_guy is correct, ctfmon.exe or CTFMon is involved with the language/alternative input services in Office XP. CTFMON.exe will continue to put itself back into MSConfig when you run the Office XP apps as long as the Text Services and Speech applets in the Control Panel are enabled. Not required if you don\'t need these features.
Yes, this also can be related to various types of malware but since I see a reference to Microsoft Excel in your log this probably indicates it is Office related.
BUT...that is the very least of your worries. You have NO anti-virus program and NO firewall on the system AND you obviously are into P2P file sharing which in itself is considered very dangerous especially without an onboard firewall and anti-virus program running all the time. One entry set to run at start up as a service is AresChatServer which is related to the Ares P2P software. There is absolutely no need for this to be running at start up.
What happened to your anti-virus program that you had installed on this computer last December? Or is this the same computer you were using last year in this thread? CPU keeps maxing at 100%
Otherwise I see nothing else in the log indicating infection, UNLESS you have start up items disabled via msconfig then of course we cannot see those items so we cannot really give an accurate reading of items on the computer. I have to assume that this is the case since there are only 4 entries listed in auto start, and all but one of those is unnecessary and the same goes for the Services listed for autostarting.

[infinitycure]

I use the Windows firewall. I just realized I misread "Before posting" sticky and accidently got rid of my AVG Free Edition thinking that the AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5 was just a newer version. So I have been using that as virus protection. As far as ARES, I use it for watching TV shows. I recently moved to Japan and miss Amercian TV. It is nice to be able to see something in English once in awhile.

Would you recommend using Firefox over IE? Is it more secure or better in some way?

[jholland1964]

Firefox is definitely more secure than Internet Explorer.

[Snoopy]

I will guess the last Windows updates you installed might be the source of your slow down.

[jholland1964]

I will guess the last Windows updates you installed might be the source of your slow down.

Possibly .

Check some things out first... In Internet Explorer go to Tools, Internet Options, Browsing History Settings. Be sure that Check for Newer Versions of Web Page is set to Every Visit to Web Page.
Set the Disk space to use to something around 10mb and days to keep in History to about 7.

You didn't tell us, how are you connected to the Internet? Is the computer slow ALL the time or just while you are online? What version of java are you using? Current version is Version 6 Update 3.

Have you done a defrag lately? I suggest using Auslogic Defrag rather than the built in Windows Defrag. This can be run in Normal mode.
How large is the hard drive? How much space do you have remaining on the hard drive? How much RAM do you have installed?
Try all the above and answer my questions. Let me know if there is any difference.

[infinitycure]

I am connected to the internet via broadband. I think it is slower when online. Sorry I am not that familiar with java and its settings. Could you tell me how to go about checking my version and getting a new one? My hard drive is only 18.6 GB with about 7 GB free. I have 640 RAM and a Pentium 4 with 1.6 GHz. It's a five year old Dell laptop so upgrading is limited. Thank you for all the help so far!

[jholland1964]

If it is only slow online then the problem could lie with your ISP and not the computer. Have you checked with them?
An 18GB hard drive with only 7 GB free means it is more than half full. If you have a lot of music, videos, photos stored on the computer getting rid of some of those might help.
To check Java version you can either go to Start, Control Panel, Java and opening that icon will show the version number.
Also look in Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove and see what and how many versions of Java show there. Old ones can be uninstalled. To get the newest version go to Sun Java Download
Download the offline install and save it to the desktop.
Close out the browser once the download is complete. Then go to Add/Remove and uninstall all older versions.
Once those are uninstalled then double click the downloaded new version and install. Once the install is complete then go to Verify
to verify the installation was correct and complete.
IE7 has higher security settings than previous versions. This could also slow things down. You might lower these settings by going to Internet Explorer, Tools, Internet Options, Security and put the setting for Internet at Medium.
If you find the computer slowness is caused by IE 7 you might try using a different browser...I use Firefox and it is much more secure and frankly I feel much faster than IE7.

[jholland1964]

Sounds like you didn't have sunjava on the system at all...Download and install the newest version from the link given.