Lucas,

You may have a damaged ShellIconCache. To repair this go here and follow the instructions for Windows 98 (assuming that is the Operating System you are running).




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Thanks Denny,

I tried what you said without result. Since posting my original message, I downloaded the Dell 32 bit Diagnostics. I've just finished running it. Everything checks out until I get to the second stage of the IDE test. Then it just takes off in a blur until I've had enough and stop it. I gave it about five minutes and was getting worried that it might be damaging my hard drive. I recall that it was doing that from the first time I ran the Diagnostics that came with the computer.

I'm beginning to wonder if I have a hard drive problem. If so, It's been there every since I got this computer. (Dim XPS R 450)

Lucas

Lucas490,

Sorry that didn't work. Have you tried deleting them from within Windows Explorer? Failing that, you might take note of their names and delete them from a command prompt (this is a guess, of course, and would take a lot of time because you clearly don't want to delete *.cpl). I was unable to find anything else in the MS knowledge base about this problem, but it certainly sounds like a Windows problem and not a hard disk problem.




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For help in deciding what can be eliminated from your Startup list, take a look here.

Hi Denny,

They don't have names and I have no way of finding them anywhere other than on my Control Panel Screen.

I've spent some time discussing this with the folks over at ZDnet and they've never heard of it either. I'm giving serious thought to doing a zztop, but not just to get rid of them. My computer has a bunch of other problems also.

Lucas

Hi Lucas! Try this for a work-around. Open Control Panel and look in the tool bar for the 3 icons that are list, large icons, small icons. Try list. Larry H

Thanks Larry,

Tried this. Clicking on "List" had no effect. Nothing happened. You need to understand that these things don't obey all the normal laws. Otherwise, I could just highlight them and hit delete.

Also they are not to be found anywhere else.

I strongly suspect they are gobbling up a very large part of my RAM. About the time that happened, I doubled my RAM to 256mb. Right now, with almost nothing loaded, I've got about 30 mb available.

I've already gone through the process of eliminating everything I can and not loading anything at startup.

Lucas

Lucas, it sounds to me that you have a virus. There is no malfunction of your computer that would otherwise behave this way unless you recently used scan disk and corrected errors. Can you go to run and type SFC and have it start? This will tell you if you have corrupted files. Can you run scan disk? You might have to reinstall Windows.

Perplexed,

Did the SFC. Fixed a minor user file but it didn't help the basic problem.

I also suspect that a Virus/Trojan might have corrupted my whole system. All I know is that it's not working like it should.

Scandisk doesn't help and I've re-installed windows 98 so many times, I've lost count.

Thanks, Lucas

Lucas,
Your computer probably needs radical surgery! Format C drive and reinstall from scratch. I would be afraid to save files, but you might want to print them out. That will purge the disease.