Has junk taken over my computer?

Jaded

Can someone please tell me what some of these folders are? I'm not very tech savvy sadly.
I think the ones I am sure about will be pretty easy to pick out.

My computer is limping along like a sick animal... I can't afford a new one and so help me god if I effed up using Zonealarm, MalWare Bytes and Spybot S&D.

Thegreatcow

Well for staters DON'T touch anything inside the OS/Windows folder. That's your core system folder and should be left alone unless you know what you're doing.

If your Compy is slowing down to a crawl, it could be for a myriad of reasons:

-You mentioned all those av/anti-spam measures you've installed. Have you run them? Have they found anything?

- How long has it been since you installed this OS?/Reformatted?

-Aside from slowness, is your computer behaving abnormally in any other way?

-Your hard drive might be fragmented, how full is it? How long has it been since you ran a disk defragmentation tool?

-The best way to get rid of files is to first go to Add/Remove Programs and safely uninstall the programs from there that you're not using. Be absolutely sure what you're uninstalling, but that is the safest way to go about doing things.

-Clean up your desktop, anything you have sitting on your Desktop requires resources to show, try to organize things onto folders in your hard drive or delete shortcuts you don't use. It makes a difference.

These should be some baseline starters for you, I don't want to recommend anything more advanced until we know for sure what's going on.

Jaded

Thegreatcow wrote: »

Well for staters DON'T touch anything inside the OS/Windows folder. That's your core system folder and should be left alone unless you know what you're doing.

If your Compy is slowing down to a crawl, it could be for a myriad of reasons:

-You mentioned all those av/anti-spam measures you've installed. Have you run them? Have they found anything?
I run them all at least once a week.

- How long has it been since you installed this OS?/Reformatted?
Never.

-Aside from slowness, is your computer behaving abnormally in any other way?
Not overly, no.

-Your hard drive might be fragmented, how full is it? How long has it been since you ran a disk defragmentation tool?
Runs every Wednesday.

-The best way to get rid of files is to first go to Add/Remove Programs and safely uninstall the programs from there that you're not using. Be absolutely sure what you're uninstalling, but that is the safest way to go about doing things.
Yup, I do this too!

-Clean up your desktop, anything you have sitting on your Desktop requires resources to show, try to organize things onto folders in your hard drive or delete shortcuts you don't use. It makes a difference.
Nadda.

These should be some baseline starters for you, I don't want to recommend anything more advanced until we know for sure what's going on.

Sir Headless VII

What is in those folders?

Thegreatcow

Hrm, well that is a conundrum then, did any particular event happen that you can recall that made things start slowing down? I only ask this because beyond the measures I outlined, the real only options left are either a reformat or re-install (unfortunately windows OS in general requires this after a couple of years more or less) or registry-diving to remove old crap from programs that were removed from the hard drive but not from the registry itself (another common problem).

I unfortunately don't have the technical acumen to safely advise someone on that though, the few times I've poked my nose into the registry have been with the aid of someone else more knowledgeable than me.

Jaded

Sir Headless VII wrote: »

What is in those folders?

The first one has two files:
1.79.130.0_to_1.79.308.0_mpasdlta.vdm._p
MPMiniSigStub

I have to run as Admin to be able to access these folders.

finalflight89

I've noticed that some installers make those random character/digit folders as a temporary directory. Then of course, the installer forgets to remove its contents. They should be safe to delete, but just to make sure, keep them in the recycling bin for a little bit. If your computer doesn't explode, then you can delete them permanently.

Try running Disk Cleanup (search for it in the start menu). You'd be surprised at how much junk it can find.

Casual

If you have a whole bunch of anti virus and anti spyware programs running I think we solved the mystery here. They eat runtime like it's going out of style.

Jaded

Only Zonealarm and SBpybot run at the same time.
Malware Bytes sits dormant until I load it.

I'll try working in MSCONFIG to see if I got a bunch of stuff running at star-tup again .

Thanks everyone!

Perpetual

Jaded wrote: »

Sir Headless VII wrote: »

What is in those folders?

The first one has two files:
1.79.130.0_to_1.79.308.0_mpasdlta.vdm._p
MPMiniSigStub

I have to run as Admin to be able to access these folders.

I google'd "mpasdlta.vdm".

First result:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/mseupdate/thread/63d01661-fec4-4a0d-a5d4-8daa62ca6718

You should do the same for the rest of the folders.

Thanatos

Are you running TeaTimer?

If you're running TeaTimer, get rid of it. It's a fucking bloated piece of shit. The rest of Spybot S&D, however, is great.

And are you updating Spybot and MalwareBytes before you run them? I'd suggest updating them, booting into Safe Mode, and scanning with both from there.

Jaded

Good call Thanatos, I update them before each run but I don't do it in safe mode.
Also no, no tea timer.