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[taslucas]

Oh sh1t!!! HELP!!!

I accidentally clicked "end process" for explorer thinking it was the browser but its the thing that runs all the icons and start bar so now I don't even have the start menu!!!

How do I get it back!?

[taslucas]

Oh sh1t!!! HELP!!!

I accidentally clicked "end process" for explorer thinking it was the browser but its the thing that runs all the icons and start bar so now I don't even have the start menu!!!

How do I get it back!?

Phew! Not to worry I fixed it myself:-)

Now, any idea how to know which processes I can end as I think having 90 running is what's slowing my lappy down

[taslucas]

Sorry I haven't been reporting back here lucas, been away from home since my last post.
Sounds like something is bottlenecking the PC. As per Clunk's comment I really hope you are not running anything norton, as more often than not, it is the culprit. Once it get a hold of your system, it spreads it's roots everywhere and it's game over.
If you're running Windows 7, then microsoft security essentials is the best thing out there at the moment, and it's FREE.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...tials-download

How old is the laptop by the way ?? There could be a mirriad of issues at hand. Corrupt drive sectors, hard drive fatigue (age) just to name a few...

Hey mate, cheers fir the reply. No I don't run Norton as I've seen it clog up the work computers.
It's about 3 years old and was running perfectly up to about a month ago. It's a hp pavilion dv6 with core i7 and running Windows 7.

[taslucas]

Is it just too full?

[spoonie]

Taslucas Have you stopped all the service's from startup. Run msconfig go to start up tab, click hide windows services, I will give you a list of crap you can turn off with out windblows having to much of a cry. Also would download a Linux live CD and do a memory test on your ram. When laptops get old and have been hot the first things Togo are the ram and HDD.

[Hodge]

Is it just too full?

I doubt it's because of it's capacity used mate. As spooner said, HD and ram in laptops go quicker after a while due to heat build up inside a cramped enclosure. However it's 3 years old.
Let me look up HP laptops and see what key you press to get into SafeMode on start-up. It's either F8 or F9.

[taslucas]

Is it just a coincidence that its slowed down and also the flash player plugin has crapped out at the same time?
I still can't get it to play a video either from the net or from my hard drive. It takes forever then tells me shockwave has crashed or is unresponsive. I've updated Adobe flash player, shockwave flash player, tried to update the video card drivers but they're already up to date.

[taslucas]

This is doing my head in!

Just managed to watch a YouTube clip with no flash player crash but it took ages to load. (not buffering, the internet is quick, it's the computer that's lagging really bad).
Once it finally started playing it was fine so maybe I'm getting somewhere?

[taslucas]

Oops spoke too soon.

Try to play a clip and it basically freezes the computer. Can't even close the browser till it has a think for a minute

[Hodge]

Hmmm to me all of this smells like corruption somewhere on the hard drive, preventing updating a specific area even if you run the drive update function.
Mate at this stage, honestly I suggest ( if it even lets you ) to back everything up in case it worsesn. And run the recovery tool to bring it back to factory condition.
During my IT years your case we used to call the snowball effect, where you digging and attempting to fix a bugging issue, may open up many more cans of worms and stuff up things which were fine.