Explorer Not Responding and F-Secure Logs to Event Viewer

I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When it boots
it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it appears to have
frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that F-Secure has been madly
logging to the Application Event Log: Event 103 - "One of the scanners could
not scan because the definition database was not available at this time;
scanning passed to the next scanner."

I have Googled for this but no helpful hits.

The System Event Log also contains events from F-Secure Gatekeeper,
reporting a problem with TNBUtil.exe (what ever that is).

I restart in Diagnostic Mode using MSConfig, and all seems to run smoothly,
except that, within a couple of minutes the machine appears to stop working.
I can Ctrl+Alt+Del to get Task Manager and I see that Explorer has stopped
responding. I end task, and things come back to life, and thereafter the
machine runs sweetly, albeit most drivers are not loaded and services are
disabled. [Having said that, I just noticed that Explorer hung again, but I
ended the task and it came back to life again]

Can anyone suggest a way to get to the bottom of this?

TIA

Charles

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When it
boots it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it appears to
have frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that F-Secure has been
madly logging to the Application Event Log: Event 103 - "One of the
scanners could not scan because the definition database was not available
at this time; scanning passed to the next scanner."

I'd probably start by cleaning FSAV off the computer and re-installing it.
I'd also look at http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/downloads/ to see if
there are any upgrades or hotfixes for your version of the scanner. You
don't mention what version of F-Secure AV you're running so I'm assuming you
would want the home support page there.

Not done anything with the home version because I'm a FSAV enterprise
customer / user, but I believe you can disable one of the scanning engines
if you know what one is generating the error, to see if that helps. Don't
forget that the FSAV problems might be a symptom of the problem rather than
the cause - do a chkdsk to check disk health and so on?

Hi Robert

Thanks for the reply. I think the F-Secure came as a bundle with Talk Talk
broadband, so I will have to reget the installation files. Worth a try
though.

Cheers

Charles

"Robert Moir" wrote in message
...

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When it
boots it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it appears to
have frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that F-Secure has been
madly logging to the Application Event Log: Event 103 - "One of the
scanners could not scan because the definition database was not available
at this time; scanning passed to the next scanner."

I'd probably start by cleaning FSAV off the computer and re-installing it.
I'd also look at http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/downloads/ to see if
there are any upgrades or hotfixes for your version of the scanner. You
don't mention what version of F-Secure AV you're running so I'm assuming
you would want the home support page there.

Not done anything with the home version because I'm a FSAV enterprise
customer / user, but I believe you can disable one of the scanning engines
if you know what one is generating the error, to see if that helps. Don't
forget that the FSAV problems might be a symptom of the problem rather
than the cause - do a chkdsk to check disk health and so on?

You need to find the specific sub-process or application running under
Explorer that's taking all
the CPU resources and slowing down your PC.

To do this try Process Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sExplorer.mspx

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show Lower
Pane' options.
Then expand the process named 'Explorer' (click on the + sign)
In the column on the left named 'CPU', look for any high CPU usage.
Next click on the CPU column to sort the processes by %CPU usage (Highest to
Lowest).
Then click on the process that's using most or all the CPU % the highlight
it,
Now that it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed select:
Search Online
This should display what out there on the web about that process.
You can also double click on any process to open up a more detailed
'Properties' window.

Note: some entries like Explorer and System/Services may need to be expanded
to show the detail,
(sub processes), in this case click on the + located to the left of the
entry.

Still another tool is What's Running
http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When it
boots it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it appears to
have frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that F-Secure has been
madly logging to the Application Event Log: Event 103 - "One of the
scanners could not scan because the definition database was not available
at this time; scanning passed to the next scanner."

I have Googled for this but no helpful hits.

The System Event Log also contains events from F-Secure Gatekeeper,
reporting a problem with TNBUtil.exe (what ever that is).

I restart in Diagnostic Mode using MSConfig, and all seems to run
smoothly, except that, within a couple of minutes the machine appears to
stop working. I can Ctrl+Alt+Del to get Task Manager and I see that
Explorer has stopped responding. I end task, and things come back to life,
and thereafter the machine runs sweetly, albeit most drivers are not
loaded and services are disabled. [Having said that, I just noticed that
Explorer hung again, but I ended the task and it came back to life again]

Can anyone suggest a way to get to the bottom of this?

TIA

Charles

Hi JS

Thanks for replying. I have Process Explorer, but one problem is that with
F-Secure enabled the machine runs so slowly that I cannot run any
application, not even Process Explorer.

When I disable F-Secure I can run PE but there is nothing using much CPU.
Idle is around 85-90%. I still get the Explorer hang though. Each time I can
restart it with Task Manager, but I can't find out what is hanging it.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
You need to find the specific sub-process or application running under
Explorer that's taking all
the CPU resources and slowing down your PC.

To do this try Process Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sExplorer.mspx

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show Lower
Pane' options.
Then expand the process named 'Explorer' (click on the + sign)
In the column on the left named 'CPU', look for any high CPU usage.
Next click on the CPU column to sort the processes by %CPU usage (Highest
to Lowest).
Then click on the process that's using most or all the CPU % the highlight
it,
Now that it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed
select: Search Online
This should display what out there on the web about that process.
You can also double click on any process to open up a more detailed
'Properties' window.

Note: some entries like Explorer and System/Services may need to be
expanded to show the detail,
(sub processes), in this case click on the + located to the left of the
entry.

Still another tool is What's Running
http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When it
boots it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it appears to
have frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that F-Secure has been
madly logging to the Application Event Log: Event 103 - "One of the
scanners could not scan because the definition database was not available
at this time; scanning passed to the next scanner."

I have Googled for this but no helpful hits.

The System Event Log also contains events from F-Secure Gatekeeper,
reporting a problem with TNBUtil.exe (what ever that is).

I restart in Diagnostic Mode using MSConfig, and all seems to run
smoothly, except that, within a couple of minutes the machine appears to
stop working. I can Ctrl+Alt+Del to get Task Manager and I see that
Explorer has stopped responding. I end task, and things come back to
life, and thereafter the machine runs sweetly, albeit most drivers are
not loaded and services are disabled. [Having said that, I just noticed
that Explorer hung again, but I ended the task and it came back to life
again]

Can anyone suggest a way to get to the bottom of this?

TIA

Charles

Does F-secure have a background task that monitors disk and process activity
and if so could this slow the PC down?
Also do you have any other AV/Spyware software running at the same time as
F-Secure?

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hi JS

Thanks for replying. I have Process Explorer, but one problem is that with
F-Secure enabled the machine runs so slowly that I cannot run any
application, not even Process Explorer.

When I disable F-Secure I can run PE but there is nothing using much CPU.
Idle is around 85-90%. I still get the Explorer hang though. Each time I
can restart it with Task Manager, but I can't find out what is hanging it.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
You need to find the specific sub-process or application running under
Explorer that's taking all
the CPU resources and slowing down your PC.

To do this try Process Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sExplorer.mspx

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show Lower
Pane' options.
Then expand the process named 'Explorer' (click on the + sign)
In the column on the left named 'CPU', look for any high CPU usage.
Next click on the CPU column to sort the processes by %CPU usage (Highest
to Lowest).
Then click on the process that's using most or all the CPU % the
highlight it,
Now that it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed
select: Search Online
This should display what out there on the web about that process.
You can also double click on any process to open up a more detailed
'Properties' window.

Note: some entries like Explorer and System/Services may need to be
expanded to show the detail,
(sub processes), in this case click on the + located to the left of the
entry.

Still another tool is What's Running
http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly
received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When it
boots it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it appears to
have frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that F-Secure has been
madly logging to the Application Event Log: Event 103 - "One of the
scanners could not scan because the definition database was not
available at this time; scanning passed to the next scanner."

I have Googled for this but no helpful hits.

The System Event Log also contains events from F-Secure Gatekeeper,
reporting a problem with TNBUtil.exe (what ever that is).

I restart in Diagnostic Mode using MSConfig, and all seems to run
smoothly, except that, within a couple of minutes the machine appears to
stop working. I can Ctrl+Alt+Del to get Task Manager and I see that
Explorer has stopped responding. I end task, and things come back to
life, and thereafter the machine runs sweetly, albeit most drivers are
not loaded and services are disabled. [Having said that, I just noticed
that Explorer hung again, but I ended the task and it came back to life
again]

Can anyone suggest a way to get to the bottom of this?

TIA

Charles

"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Does F-secure have a background task that monitors disk and process
activity and if so could this slow the PC down?
Also do you have any other AV/Spyware software running at the same time as
F-Secure?

I can tell you now that the process sucking up all the processor time will
probably be named something like fssm32.exe. There's a hotfix for this exact
issue with the enterprise version of F-Secure on the F-Secure website.

It's also probably set to some paranoid default setting, something like scan
all files and regressively scan all archives... the last setting alone will
totally kill any machine trying to run Java in any serious way, for example,
because all the java JAR class files are.... *drum roll* packed archives!
FSAV is a fine product but the latest version seems to have a few bugs and
some real paranoid settings.

Hi Robert

I will definitely check this out. I am close to ditching F-Secure and going
with something free like AVG.

Cheers.

Charles


"Robert Moir" wrote in message
...

"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Does F-secure have a background task that monitors disk and process
activity and if so could this slow the PC down?
Also do you have any other AV/Spyware software running at the same time
as F-Secure?

I can tell you now that the process sucking up all the processor time will
probably be named something like fssm32.exe. There's a hotfix for this
exact issue with the enterprise version of F-Secure on the F-Secure
website.

It's also probably set to some paranoid default setting, something like
scan all files and regressively scan all archives... the last setting
alone will totally kill any machine trying to run Java in any serious way,
for example, because all the java JAR class files are.... *drum roll*
packed archives! FSAV is a fine product but the latest version seems to
have a few bugs and some real paranoid settings.

Hard to say. It's not a product I am really familiar with. There are umpteen
things that get loaded at start-up, and I haven't a clue what they all do.
In order to get some response from the machine I disable them all.

I've got to the point now where I am fairly satisfied that F-Secure is my
'slow-down' problem, so I might well ditch it and go with something like
AVG.

What is now more worrying is that Explorer hangs regularly, and although I
can restart it I can't go on like this. I need to home in on what is pulling
it down, but this is proving far less straightforward.

Do you have any techniques that would be useful here?

Thanks.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Does F-secure have a background task that monitors disk and process
activity and if so could this slow the PC down?
Also do you have any other AV/Spyware software running at the same time as
F-Secure?

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hi JS

Thanks for replying. I have Process Explorer, but one problem is that
with F-Secure enabled the machine runs so slowly that I cannot run any
application, not even Process Explorer.

When I disable F-Secure I can run PE but there is nothing using much CPU.
Idle is around 85-90%. I still get the Explorer hang though. Each time I
can restart it with Task Manager, but I can't find out what is hanging
it.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
You need to find the specific sub-process or application running under
Explorer that's taking all
the CPU resources and slowing down your PC.

To do this try Process Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sExplorer.mspx

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show Lower
Pane' options.
Then expand the process named 'Explorer' (click on the + sign)
In the column on the left named 'CPU', look for any high CPU usage.
Next click on the CPU column to sort the processes by %CPU usage
(Highest to Lowest).
Then click on the process that's using most or all the CPU % the
highlight it,
Now that it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed
select: Search Online
This should display what out there on the web about that process.
You can also double click on any process to open up a more detailed
'Properties' window.

Note: some entries like Explorer and System/Services may need to be
expanded to show the detail,
(sub processes), in this case click on the + located to the left of the
entry.

Still another tool is What's Running
http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly
received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When it
boots it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it appears to
have frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that F-Secure has been
madly logging to the Application Event Log: Event 103 - "One of the
scanners could not scan because the definition database was not
available at this time; scanning passed to the next scanner."

I have Googled for this but no helpful hits.

The System Event Log also contains events from F-Secure Gatekeeper,
reporting a problem with TNBUtil.exe (what ever that is).

I restart in Diagnostic Mode using MSConfig, and all seems to run
smoothly, except that, within a couple of minutes the machine appears
to stop working. I can Ctrl+Alt+Del to get Task Manager and I see that
Explorer has stopped responding. I end task, and things come back to
life, and thereafter the machine runs sweetly, albeit most drivers are
not loaded and services are disabled. [Having said that, I just noticed
that Explorer hung again, but I ended the task and it came back to life
again]

Can anyone suggest a way to get to the bottom of this?

TIA

Charles

Once you have removed 'All traces' of F-Secure then I would take another
look using Process Explorer. The CPU graph at the top might give you some
help (move the mouse cursor over any spike in the graph for locating what
cause the CPU usage spike).

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hard to say. It's not a product I am really familiar with. There are
umpteen things that get loaded at start-up, and I haven't a clue what they
all do. In order to get some response from the machine I disable them all.

I've got to the point now where I am fairly satisfied that F-Secure is my
'slow-down' problem, so I might well ditch it and go with something like
AVG.

What is now more worrying is that Explorer hangs regularly, and although I
can restart it I can't go on like this. I need to home in on what is
pulling it down, but this is proving far less straightforward.

Do you have any techniques that would be useful here?

Thanks.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Does F-secure have a background task that monitors disk and process
activity and if so could this slow the PC down?
Also do you have any other AV/Spyware software running at the same time
as F-Secure?

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hi JS

Thanks for replying. I have Process Explorer, but one problem is that
with F-Secure enabled the machine runs so slowly that I cannot run any
application, not even Process Explorer.

When I disable F-Secure I can run PE but there is nothing using much
CPU. Idle is around 85-90%. I still get the Explorer hang though. Each
time I can restart it with Task Manager, but I can't find out what is
hanging it.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message
...
You need to find the specific sub-process or application running under
Explorer that's taking all
the CPU resources and slowing down your PC.

To do this try Process Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sExplorer.mspx

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show
Lower Pane' options.
Then expand the process named 'Explorer' (click on the + sign)
In the column on the left named 'CPU', look for any high CPU usage.
Next click on the CPU column to sort the processes by %CPU usage
(Highest to Lowest).
Then click on the process that's using most or all the CPU % the
highlight it,
Now that it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed
select: Search Online
This should display what out there on the web about that process.
You can also double click on any process to open up a more detailed
'Properties' window.

Note: some entries like Explorer and System/Services may need to be
expanded to show the detail,
(sub processes), in this case click on the + located to the left of the
entry.

Still another tool is What's Running
http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly
received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When it
boots it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it appears to
have frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that F-Secure has been
madly logging to the Application Event Log: Event 103 - "One of the
scanners could not scan because the definition database was not
available at this time; scanning passed to the next scanner."

I have Googled for this but no helpful hits.

The System Event Log also contains events from F-Secure Gatekeeper,
reporting a problem with TNBUtil.exe (what ever that is).

I restart in Diagnostic Mode using MSConfig, and all seems to run
smoothly, except that, within a couple of minutes the machine appears
to stop working. I can Ctrl+Alt+Del to get Task Manager and I see that
Explorer has stopped responding. I end task, and things come back to
life, and thereafter the machine runs sweetly, albeit most drivers are
not loaded and services are disabled. [Having said that, I just
noticed that Explorer hung again, but I ended the task and it came
back to life again]

Can anyone suggest a way to get to the bottom of this?

TIA

Charles

F-Secure is now completely disabled, and AVG is running. I have run a
complete scan and nothing found.

Process Explorer is also running and I can fairly reliably cause Explorer to
hang. Everything else continues to function, and there is no great CPU
usage. Memory usage is pretty low too.

It seems that it is something to do with Windows Explorer. I open Windows
Explorer and then minimize it. A moment later I try to maximise it and I get
the Explorer frame appear with the desktop inside. I switch to Process
Explorer and it says Explorer "Not responding".

I can look at the threads list but I am not sure what it tells me. There are
about 30 entries called

!CreateSystemThreads

and they all have a state of Wait:UserRequest. When I look at another
machine there are no entries like this.

Does this tell you anything, or is there more information I can get from
this.

Thanks for your continued help.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Once you have removed 'All traces' of F-Secure then I would take another
look using Process Explorer. The CPU graph at the top might give you some
help (move the mouse cursor over any spike in the graph for locating what
cause the CPU usage spike).

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hard to say. It's not a product I am really familiar with. There are
umpteen things that get loaded at start-up, and I haven't a clue what
they all do. In order to get some response from the machine I disable
them all.

I've got to the point now where I am fairly satisfied that F-Secure is my
'slow-down' problem, so I might well ditch it and go with something like
AVG.

What is now more worrying is that Explorer hangs regularly, and although
I can restart it I can't go on like this. I need to home in on what is
pulling it down, but this is proving far less straightforward.

Do you have any techniques that would be useful here?

Thanks.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Does F-secure have a background task that monitors disk and process
activity and if so could this slow the PC down?
Also do you have any other AV/Spyware software running at the same time
as F-Secure?

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hi JS

Thanks for replying. I have Process Explorer, but one problem is that
with F-Secure enabled the machine runs so slowly that I cannot run any
application, not even Process Explorer.

When I disable F-Secure I can run PE but there is nothing using much
CPU. Idle is around 85-90%. I still get the Explorer hang though. Each
time I can restart it with Task Manager, but I can't find out what is
hanging it.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message
...
You need to find the specific sub-process or application running under
Explorer that's taking all
the CPU resources and slowing down your PC.

To do this try Process Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sExplorer.mspx

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show
Lower Pane' options.
Then expand the process named 'Explorer' (click on the + sign)
In the column on the left named 'CPU', look for any high CPU usage.
Next click on the CPU column to sort the processes by %CPU usage
(Highest to Lowest).
Then click on the process that's using most or all the CPU % the
highlight it,
Now that it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed
select: Search Online
This should display what out there on the web about that process.
You can also double click on any process to open up a more detailed
'Properties' window.

Note: some entries like Explorer and System/Services may need to be
expanded to show the detail,
(sub processes), in this case click on the + located to the left of
the entry.

Still another tool is What's Running
http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly
received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When it
boots it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it appears
to have frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that F-Secure has
been madly logging to the Application Event Log: Event 103 - "One of
the scanners could not scan because the definition database was not
available at this time; scanning passed to the next scanner."

I have Googled for this but no helpful hits.

The System Event Log also contains events from F-Secure Gatekeeper,
reporting a problem with TNBUtil.exe (what ever that is).

I restart in Diagnostic Mode using MSConfig, and all seems to run
smoothly, except that, within a couple of minutes the machine appears
to stop working. I can Ctrl+Alt+Del to get Task Manager and I see
that Explorer has stopped responding. I end task, and things come
back to life, and thereafter the machine runs sweetly, albeit most
drivers are not loaded and services are disabled. [Having said that,
I just noticed that Explorer hung again, but I ended the task and it
came back to life again]

Can anyone suggest a way to get to the bottom of this?

TIA

Charles

Hi Charles , why not try this http://zabkat.com/x2lite.htm
instead of windows explorer .
I use the paid version , and only ever use windows explorer very
rarely .







On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:50:46 +0100, "Charles Law"
wrote:

F-Secure is now completely disabled, and AVG is running. I have run a
complete scan and nothing found.

Process Explorer is also running and I can fairly reliably cause Explorer to
hang. Everything else continues to function, and there is no great CPU
usage. Memory usage is pretty low too.

It seems that it is something to do with Windows Explorer. I open Windows
Explorer and then minimize it. A moment later I try to maximise it and I get
the Explorer frame appear with the desktop inside. I switch to Process
Explorer and it says Explorer "Not responding".

I can look at the threads list but I am not sure what it tells me. There are
about 30 entries called

!CreateSystemThreads

and they all have a state of Wait:UserRequest. When I look at another
machine there are no entries like this.

Does this tell you anything, or is there more information I can get from
this.

Thanks for your continued help.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Once you have removed 'All traces' of F-Secure then I would take another
look using Process Explorer. The CPU graph at the top might give you some
help (move the mouse cursor over any spike in the graph for locating what
cause the CPU usage spike).

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hard to say. It's not a product I am really familiar with. There are
umpteen things that get loaded at start-up, and I haven't a clue what
they all do. In order to get some response from the machine I disable
them all.

I've got to the point now where I am fairly satisfied that F-Secure is my
'slow-down' problem, so I might well ditch it and go with something like
AVG.

What is now more worrying is that Explorer hangs regularly, and although
I can restart it I can't go on like this. I need to home in on what is
pulling it down, but this is proving far less straightforward.

Do you have any techniques that would be useful here?

Thanks.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Does F-secure have a background task that monitors disk and process
activity and if so could this slow the PC down?
Also do you have any other AV/Spyware software running at the same time
as F-Secure?

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hi JS

Thanks for replying. I have Process Explorer, but one problem is that
with F-Secure enabled the machine runs so slowly that I cannot run any
application, not even Process Explorer.

When I disable F-Secure I can run PE but there is nothing using much
CPU. Idle is around 85-90%. I still get the Explorer hang though. Each
time I can restart it with Task Manager, but I can't find out what is
hanging it.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message
...
You need to find the specific sub-process or application running under
Explorer that's taking all
the CPU resources and slowing down your PC.

To do this try Process Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sExplorer.mspx

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show
Lower Pane' options.
Then expand the process named 'Explorer' (click on the + sign)
In the column on the left named 'CPU', look for any high CPU usage.
Next click on the CPU column to sort the processes by %CPU usage
(Highest to Lowest).
Then click on the process that's using most or all the CPU % the
highlight it,
Now that it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed
select: Search Online
This should display what out there on the web about that process.
You can also double click on any process to open up a more detailed
'Properties' window.

Note: some entries like Explorer and System/Services may need to be
expanded to show the detail,
(sub processes), in this case click on the + located to the left of
the entry.

Still another tool is What's Running
http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly
received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When it
boots it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it appears
to have frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that F-Secure has
been madly logging to the Application Event Log: Event 103 - "One of
the scanners could not scan because the definition database was not
available at this time; scanning passed to the next scanner."

I have Googled for this but no helpful hits.

The System Event Log also contains events from F-Secure Gatekeeper,
reporting a problem with TNBUtil.exe (what ever that is).

I restart in Diagnostic Mode using MSConfig, and all seems to run
smoothly, except that, within a couple of minutes the machine appears
to stop working. I can Ctrl+Alt+Del to get Task Manager and I see
that Explorer has stopped responding. I end task, and things come
back to life, and thereafter the machine runs sweetly, albeit most
drivers are not loaded and services are disabled. [Having said that,
I just noticed that Explorer hung again, but I ended the task and it
came back to life again]

Can anyone suggest a way to get to the bottom of this?

TIA

Charles

Hi

I might well give this a try, but I would really like to get to the bottom
of the problem with Explorer as it could be a symptom of something more
serious.

Thanks.

Charles


wrote in message
...

Hi Charles , why not try this http://zabkat.com/x2lite.htm
instead of windows explorer .
I use the paid version , and only ever use windows explorer very
rarely .







On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:50:46 +0100, "Charles Law"
wrote:

F-Secure is now completely disabled, and AVG is running. I have run a
complete scan and nothing found.

Process Explorer is also running and I can fairly reliably cause Explorer
to
hang. Everything else continues to function, and there is no great CPU
usage. Memory usage is pretty low too.

It seems that it is something to do with Windows Explorer. I open Windows
Explorer and then minimize it. A moment later I try to maximise it and I
get
the Explorer frame appear with the desktop inside. I switch to Process
Explorer and it says Explorer "Not responding".

I can look at the threads list but I am not sure what it tells me. There
are
about 30 entries called

!CreateSystemThreads

and they all have a state of Wait:UserRequest. When I look at another
machine there are no entries like this.

Does this tell you anything, or is there more information I can get from
this.

Thanks for your continued help.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Once you have removed 'All traces' of F-Secure then I would take another
look using Process Explorer. The CPU graph at the top might give you
some
help (move the mouse cursor over any spike in the graph for locating
what
cause the CPU usage spike).

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hard to say. It's not a product I am really familiar with. There are
umpteen things that get loaded at start-up, and I haven't a clue what
they all do. In order to get some response from the machine I disable
them all.

I've got to the point now where I am fairly satisfied that F-Secure is
my
'slow-down' problem, so I might well ditch it and go with something
like
AVG.

What is now more worrying is that Explorer hangs regularly, and
although
I can restart it I can't go on like this. I need to home in on what is
pulling it down, but this is proving far less straightforward.

Do you have any techniques that would be useful here?

Thanks.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Does F-secure have a background task that monitors disk and process
activity and if so could this slow the PC down?
Also do you have any other AV/Spyware software running at the same
time
as F-Secure?

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hi JS

Thanks for replying. I have Process Explorer, but one problem is that
with F-Secure enabled the machine runs so slowly that I cannot run
any
application, not even Process Explorer.

When I disable F-Secure I can run PE but there is nothing using much
CPU. Idle is around 85-90%. I still get the Explorer hang though.
Each
time I can restart it with Task Manager, but I can't find out what is
hanging it.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message
...
You need to find the specific sub-process or application running
under
Explorer that's taking all
the CPU resources and slowing down your PC.

To do this try Process Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sExplorer.mspx

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show
Lower Pane' options.
Then expand the process named 'Explorer' (click on the + sign)
In the column on the left named 'CPU', look for any high CPU usage.
Next click on the CPU column to sort the processes by %CPU usage
(Highest to Lowest).
Then click on the process that's using most or all the CPU % the
highlight it,
Now that it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed
select: Search Online
This should display what out there on the web about that process.
You can also double click on any process to open up a more detailed
'Properties' window.

Note: some entries like Explorer and System/Services may need to be
expanded to show the detail,
(sub processes), in this case click on the + located to the left of
the entry.

Still another tool is What's Running
http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly
received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When
it
boots it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it appears
to have frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that F-Secure
has
been madly logging to the Application Event Log: Event 103 - "One
of
the scanners could not scan because the definition database was not
available at this time; scanning passed to the next scanner."

I have Googled for this but no helpful hits.

The System Event Log also contains events from F-Secure Gatekeeper,
reporting a problem with TNBUtil.exe (what ever that is).

I restart in Diagnostic Mode using MSConfig, and all seems to run
smoothly, except that, within a couple of minutes the machine
appears
to stop working. I can Ctrl+Alt+Del to get Task Manager and I see
that Explorer has stopped responding. I end task, and things come
back to life, and thereafter the machine runs sweetly, albeit most
drivers are not loaded and services are disabled. [Having said
that,
I just noticed that Explorer hung again, but I ended the task and
it
came back to life again]

Can anyone suggest a way to get to the bottom of this?

TIA

Charles

One thing I have just noticed is that when Explorer is running properly, the
symbols in the Process Explorer threads list are shown. That is, there are
entries such as

SHLWAPI.dll!Ordinal505+0x37a
BROWSEUI.dll!Ordinal138+0x7af5
....

Once Explorer has crashed, the symbols are missing, so entries look like

!Ordinal505+0x37a
!Ordinal138+0x7af5
....

The only entries still to have a symbol are

ntdll.dll!RtlQueueWorkItem+0x2b5
ntdll.dll!RtlDowncaseUnicodeString+0x75
....

I don't know if that helps at all.

Charles




"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Once you have removed 'All traces' of F-Secure then I would take another
look using Process Explorer. The CPU graph at the top might give you some
help (move the mouse cursor over any spike in the graph for locating what
cause the CPU usage spike).

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hard to say. It's not a product I am really familiar with. There are
umpteen things that get loaded at start-up, and I haven't a clue what
they all do. In order to get some response from the machine I disable
them all.

I've got to the point now where I am fairly satisfied that F-Secure is my
'slow-down' problem, so I might well ditch it and go with something like
AVG.

What is now more worrying is that Explorer hangs regularly, and although
I can restart it I can't go on like this. I need to home in on what is
pulling it down, but this is proving far less straightforward.

Do you have any techniques that would be useful here?

Thanks.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Does F-secure have a background task that monitors disk and process
activity and if so could this slow the PC down?
Also do you have any other AV/Spyware software running at the same time
as F-Secure?

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hi JS

Thanks for replying. I have Process Explorer, but one problem is that
with F-Secure enabled the machine runs so slowly that I cannot run any
application, not even Process Explorer.

When I disable F-Secure I can run PE but there is nothing using much
CPU. Idle is around 85-90%. I still get the Explorer hang though. Each
time I can restart it with Task Manager, but I can't find out what is
hanging it.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message
...
You need to find the specific sub-process or application running under
Explorer that's taking all
the CPU resources and slowing down your PC.

To do this try Process Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sExplorer.mspx

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show
Lower Pane' options.
Then expand the process named 'Explorer' (click on the + sign)
In the column on the left named 'CPU', look for any high CPU usage.
Next click on the CPU column to sort the processes by %CPU usage
(Highest to Lowest).
Then click on the process that's using most or all the CPU % the
highlight it,
Now that it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed
select: Search Online
This should display what out there on the web about that process.
You can also double click on any process to open up a more detailed
'Properties' window.

Note: some entries like Explorer and System/Services may need to be
expanded to show the detail,
(sub processes), in this case click on the + located to the left of
the entry.

Still another tool is What's Running
http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly
received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When it
boots it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it appears
to have frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that F-Secure has
been madly logging to the Application Event Log: Event 103 - "One of
the scanners could not scan because the definition database was not
available at this time; scanning passed to the next scanner."

I have Googled for this but no helpful hits.

The System Event Log also contains events from F-Secure Gatekeeper,
reporting a problem with TNBUtil.exe (what ever that is).

I restart in Diagnostic Mode using MSConfig, and all seems to run
smoothly, except that, within a couple of minutes the machine appears
to stop working. I can Ctrl+Alt+Del to get Task Manager and I see
that Explorer has stopped responding. I end task, and things come
back to life, and thereafter the machine runs sweetly, albeit most
drivers are not loaded and services are disabled. [Having said that,
I just noticed that Explorer hung again, but I ended the task and it
came back to life again]

Can anyone suggest a way to get to the bottom of this?

TIA

Charles

Well there certainly is not a lack of articles in MS Knowledge Base on
shlwapi.dll
http://support.microsoft.com/search/...de=s&cat=False

There are four hits when search for both DLL files at the same time:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/...de=s&cat=False

JS


"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
One thing I have just noticed is that when Explorer is running properly,
the symbols in the Process Explorer threads list are shown. That is, there
are entries such as

SHLWAPI.dll!Ordinal505+0x37a
BROWSEUI.dll!Ordinal138+0x7af5
...

Once Explorer has crashed, the symbols are missing, so entries look like

!Ordinal505+0x37a
!Ordinal138+0x7af5
...

The only entries still to have a symbol are

ntdll.dll!RtlQueueWorkItem+0x2b5
ntdll.dll!RtlDowncaseUnicodeString+0x75
...

I don't know if that helps at all.

Charles




"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Once you have removed 'All traces' of F-Secure then I would take another
look using Process Explorer. The CPU graph at the top might give you some
help (move the mouse cursor over any spike in the graph for locating what
cause the CPU usage spike).

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hard to say. It's not a product I am really familiar with. There are
umpteen things that get loaded at start-up, and I haven't a clue what
they all do. In order to get some response from the machine I disable
them all.

I've got to the point now where I am fairly satisfied that F-Secure is
my 'slow-down' problem, so I might well ditch it and go with something
like AVG.

What is now more worrying is that Explorer hangs regularly, and although
I can restart it I can't go on like this. I need to home in on what is
pulling it down, but this is proving far less straightforward.

Do you have any techniques that would be useful here?

Thanks.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message ...
Does F-secure have a background task that monitors disk and process
activity and if so could this slow the PC down?
Also do you have any other AV/Spyware software running at the same time
as F-Secure?

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
Hi JS

Thanks for replying. I have Process Explorer, but one problem is that
with F-Secure enabled the machine runs so slowly that I cannot run any
application, not even Process Explorer.

When I disable F-Secure I can run PE but there is nothing using much
CPU. Idle is around 85-90%. I still get the Explorer hang though. Each
time I can restart it with Task Manager, but I can't find out what is
hanging it.

Charles


"JS" @ wrote in message
...
You need to find the specific sub-process or application running
under Explorer that's taking all
the CPU resources and slowing down your PC.

To do this try Process Explorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sExplorer.mspx

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show
Lower Pane' options.
Then expand the process named 'Explorer' (click on the + sign)
In the column on the left named 'CPU', look for any high CPU usage.
Next click on the CPU column to sort the processes by %CPU usage
(Highest to Lowest).
Then click on the process that's using most or all the CPU % the
highlight it,
Now that it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed
select: Search Online
This should display what out there on the web about that process.
You can also double click on any process to open up a more detailed
'Properties' window.

Note: some entries like Explorer and System/Services may need to be
expanded to show the detail,
(sub processes), in this case click on the + located to the left of
the entry.

Still another tool is What's Running
http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx

JS

"Charles Law" wrote in message
...
I know this is going to be a long shot, but any pointers greatly
received.

I have a Windows XP Home machine running F-Secure anti-virus. When
it boots it logs in to Windows and then runs so slowly that it
appears to have frozen. If I boot into Safe Mode I can see that
F-Secure has been madly logging to the Application Event Log: Event
103 - "One of the scanners could not scan because the definition
database was not available at this time; scanning passed to the next
scanner."

I have Googled for this but no helpful hits.

The System Event Log also contains events from F-Secure Gatekeeper,
reporting a problem with TNBUtil.exe (what ever that is).

I restart in Diagnostic Mode using MSConfig, and all seems to run
smoothly, except that, within a couple of minutes the machine
appears to stop working. I can Ctrl+Alt+Del to get Task Manager and
I see that Explorer has stopped responding. I end task, and things
come back to life, and thereafter the machine runs sweetly, albeit
most drivers are not loaded and services are disabled. [Having said
that, I just noticed that Explorer hung again, but I ended the task
and it came back to life again]

Can anyone suggest a way to get to the bottom of this?

TIA

Charles