I am hoping that I can get some advice regarding a Norton and or computer issue that I have. I have been sick and do not have extra money to pay someone to help me.
I have 2006 Sony Vaio laptop with preloaded NIS 2006 , Win XP Media Center 2005. w SP2 I have not had any problems with NIS except with an infrequent CCAP.EXE End Now message at shut down. Now when I start computer , it boots normally and most of the startup programs load until it gets to urllstk.exe and ccap.exe. When they load they each take up 50% CPU , making the comp inoperable and I have to force a hard shutdown. It did this repeatedly. I can only get to the task manager if I open it before those two process load. I tried ending the urllstk.exe since it seemed to have the most trouble loading and got the "could not terminate access denied" message. I also got a message about one of the preloaded game software failing to start and needing to debug (I can gove more info if needed).
I was able to get into safe mode and start copying important files. I also looked the the Admin Tools to look at Event Manager to see what was going on... I saw quite a few errors regarding Live Update not responding and a couple referring to LiveUpdate being corrupt.These entries happened over the past few days and the time looked like it was around times I would have started or shut down my computer. I have screen shots or Event Ids if that helps. I have couple of ideas but don;t know what I should do first besides get my personal files copied.
I am thinking that either Norton is corrupted, the registry is corrupted, the hard drive is fragmented or has errors or worse is failing, or malware has corrupted Norton (although I primarily use the comp to read email or at worst youtube, I know that it is possible for an infected ad to have malware).
I do not have disks for any software that came with the pc as it has a partitioned drive with recovery module . I do have recovery disks.
What should I do first? Check the harddrive for errors? defragment the hardrive? unintstall NIS 2006 (can I even do this if it is corrupt) , run an online scan to check for malware/virus? Or attempt to wipe everything and reinstall everything using the built in recover console. I have to check if I can even buy and install a new Norton product. I am not certain that my comp meets the minimum recommended specs which grow with each new edition. .
Whatever I do, right now I can only do it in safe mode.
I don't have much money either so I really appreciate your advice.
Thank you and please let me know if you need anymore information, Event IDs, etc.