For about two days now my computer's been running ridiculously slow and the task manager reads explorer.exe as using all the memory... if i try to run any programs or install anything it won't let me

does anyone know what this is? I thought perhaps a virus of some sort but I ran virus scan and spybot and came up with nothing

Any and all help is greatly appreciated

Hey princessedelarue,

There are a variety of things that could be causing Explorer to be "hogging" your memory. First, I would make sure that there are not any Trojan's or misterious worms on your system.

Download and run these programs first:


Download Ad-Aware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/

Guidelines For Using Ad-aware 6 Build 6.181, SetUp and Removal suggestions:
http://forum.gladiator-antivirus.com/index.php?showtopic=8050


Download 'Hijack This!'. http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/

Unzip, doubleclick HijackThis.exe, and hit "Scan".
When the scan is finished, the "Scan" button will change into a "Save Log" button.

After downloading Adware and HijackThis, post your HJT log to this forum for all to take a look at. I can do my best, but the site moderators might be able to tell you exactly whats wrong. Hope that this helps!!
Good Luck!