Add/remove programs

[Arm out the window]

First of all, thanks for the good advice on the FAQ thread about removing spyware etc - I've downloaded and run AdAware and Spybot today with good results after having strange pop-ups appear. I've also bought and run Trend Micro Internet Security in response to these painful occurrences.
However, there still seems to be some problems with our computer (Windows XP, fairly standard kind of PC) that I'd like to ask the experts about -

Since these things started appearing (I think), I was unable to run task manager (a message came up saying something like 'The administrator has disabled task manager', but that problem's been fixed by Spybot; what's still happening, though, is that when I try to run 'Add / remove programs' from Control Panel, it says 'wait while the list of programs is being populated', but the list never appears - you can hear the hard disk working, but it just keeps going with no result.

Can anyone shed light on this or point me in the right direction to solve the problem? Spybot, AdAware and Trend Micro all say they've scanned and fixed everything they've found, but it seems all is still not right.

Thanks very much.

[Saab Dastard]

First of all, to be on the safe side, ensure that you back up all your data and settings.

Some suggestions - by no means exhaustive:

Try leaving it running overnight - if it still doesn't populate the list then move on to next steps!

Search Google for

"Add / remove programs" empty

and see if anything seems similar. Some of the suggestions might work.

Get hold of a registry cleaner to identify and fix orphaned registry settings.

Run "Hijack this" to identify if there are still any nasty processes that shouldn't be there.

If you can't identify the problem to fix it, you can try a Repair of the Windows installation. More Here.

If that doesn't fix it, you might have to do a clean install - just as well you backed everything up!

SD

[Arm out the window]

Thanks very much - most problems sorted now, and working on the few remaining.

[CYPR]

Add/Remove Programs etc.,

If you're looking for a Registry cleaner you could download CCleaner from CNet, it's free and I hae used it for 6 mths now without any problems.

Here's their URL http://www.ccleaner.com/

Hope this will help

[Arm out the window]

Thanks a lot folks, much appreciated.

[matt_hooks]

ccleaner also has an "add/remove programs" function. Obviously the first thing is to look for uninstallers for any programs you want to uninstall. Most programs have an uninstaller with them. The Windows add/remove program heuristics they use to determine frequency of use etc. do tend to slow things down a bit, but failing to appear at all is slightly more worrying.

I'll have a look around and see what I can find from some of my more knowledgable friends.

As a first step, you could try opening the "run" command box and typing in "REGSVR32 APPWIZ.CPL" (without the inverted commas). This should re-register the applet and has been known to sort the problem.

Let me know if that works, if not there are a few other tricks to try. How do you feel about Registry editing?