My Windows caught a cold?

October 14, 2007 10:23 AM

My Windows 2000 system suddenly has many services problems. Details inside.

WIN2K with SP4 at home. No antivirus program.

First thing I noticed was that I couldn't copy from Firefox when I posted a couple of days ago. (Can copy from IE)
A day or 2 later I tried to print and saw I didn't have any printers installed anymore. Went to services- Print Spooler was on auto but not started. Clicked Start and get message '...Error 1068: The dependency service or group failed to start.
I see that many automatic services are not started and get this message. Searching the net I see the RPC service is mentioned a bit. My RPC service is disabled. If I click Properties, the properties popup does not appear (although if I try to close Computer Management it says I have a Properties screen open.
Oh, and if I go to F:\WINNT nothing shows up (although the status bar says there are 123 objects there and if I arrow down it tells me how big the objects are)

I assume I picked up a virus of some kind. I ran an (old-2004) antivirus scan (Symantic) which picked up nothing.

I thought if I booted the Windows CD I could get a repair option, but it won't boot from CD anymore, either. (Still shows CD ahead of disk in boot options, though)

Is there any hope for me? Thanks in advance.

posted by MtDewd to computers & internet (6 comments total)

"I assume I picked up a virus of some kind."

That's a pretty big assumption. Yes, Windows is prone to lots of malware problems, but it's even more prone to just plain old failure. I assume you have filesystem corruption and/or bum memory.

"it won't boot from CD anymore, either"

That's a hardware problem, since booting from CD doesn't depend on the state of your Windows installation at all.
posted by majick at 11:55 AM on October 14, 2007

I'm having weird problems w my Windows 2000 system too, but it's like 6 years old. It basically needs a reinstall, but I can't do a simple repair reinstall because it's been upgraded a couple service packs, and the disc refuses to do what it calls a downgrade of the OS.

The only real option seems to be a reformat of the disc, which I'm kind of afraid to do. Although I've backed up all my documents, I know I'm going to lose a couple expensive applications because they won't be properly installed anymore, stuff like that.

So yeah, I doubt a fancy virus program is going to help you. Windows, 2000 in particular but probably all versions, eventually seems to just descend into senescence beyond the capability of electro-medical science to keep up.
posted by Naberius at 12:40 PM on October 14, 2007

Turn off the Windows Messaging service. Download, install, update and run both AVG Free and Ad-Aware.

These tools are both free.

Windows 2000 was a fine operating system, but you really should be using XP (if your hardcare can handle it).

Good luck!
posted by ReiToei at 2:34 PM on October 14, 2007

Windows Messaging service doesn't show.
Thanks for the AV and ad links.
Unfortunately, they won't install because they get the 1068 error too.
posted by MtDewd at 5:45 AM on October 15, 2007

Can you boot into Safe Mode? Reboot the computer, and repeatedly hit F8 when it powers back on. It should bring up a Safe Mode options menu. Go into Safe Mode with Networking and try and install from there.
posted by ReiToei at 6:29 AM on October 15, 2007

Boots to Safe mode, but the AV still won't install.

IT guy at my office found RPC setting in the Registry wrong.
No idea how it got that way.

Much better now, thanks.
posted by MtDewd at 8:57 AM on October 16, 2007