computer problem ** PLEASE HELP **

[Daedelus]

ok iam not sure what happened and iam know nothing almost about fixing comps so laymans terms please.

i must of had some addware on my comp i kept getting a pop up for some error guard program it sort of looked like a microsoft product so i kept closing it. i whent on to C.net and down loaded a copy of registry mechanic. it did a quick scan and said i had something like 300 various problems i clicked the fix/clean button and it said this is just trial version go buy product but that 150 problems were corrected by trial version. i then down loaded spy bot search and destroy free version and let it run its magic but when i came in i had error on the screen.
I didnt reallly look to see what it said and closed it,so when i whent to play sims2 it pop-up error "this file does not have a program associated with it for preforming this action. Creat an association in the folder Options control panel.

so i go to do this and i get anther pop up with C:\WINNT\Explorer.EXE
and the error says same this no program association.
Basically every thing i click on shows simillar messages. i restarted comp to see if it wound fix and i hit Ctrl+Alt+del to pull up task manager i see the memory usage but the line for CPU has 00 after every application like nothing is running?

well some how imy internet is running but nothing else. can you guys help me figure out what happened and better yet how can i fix it?

Thank you.

[LA_MERC_LaTech]

Shut down the computer and reboot into safe mode (this can be done by pressing F8 BEFORE the WinXP screen comes up and then choosing "Safe Mode")

Once in safe mode (sometimes takes a while), Run Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware till you get no more errors.

Reboot the computer and see if that fixed it.

[Daedelus]

ok tryed the safe mode option got to diffrent looking desk top that had safe mode in all four corners tryed to run spybot search and destroy and nothing got the same error. wouldnt let me run it at all.

hey when i did the pick safe mode it asked me if i whanted to do system resore insted should i try that not sure what it does though, hehe.

[LA_MERC_LaTech]

You can do a system restore, but anything that you did recently (since the time you made a restore point) will be gone. Just an FYI

[Daedelus]

hum i dont remeber ever doing a restore point sience i bought this comp. does that mean it would whipe every thing out?

hey on a thought i just had my comp in the shop and they had to put new mobo in. do you think it would reset to there where i got it from them would they have set a restore thingy.

[LA_MERC_T4rg3T]

Your computer should automatically create restore points at various times. When you go to restore your computer, it will give you a calendar with dates that will be in bold text. Click on one of more recent of those dates and you should see a restore point in the right hand windows. Click that restore point and restore your pc.

After you restore, I would suggest downloading and running ad-aware.

[Daedelus]

ok it worked perfect looks like i had auto matic restore point from yesterday some how so i used it and now can access my control panel etc. so iam running ad awre Se right now then will get spy bot again and run it too.

Hey man thanks alot that was a big help i wasnt sure what to do. And know i think this will work. ill let you know if i have any problems.

[SnAkEbItE]

That regedit program that you ran wiped out some of the registry entries for your good software, you have to be real carefull when you run one of those programs.

I have found that the best tool to remove spyware is AdAware and booting into safe mode with no networking, that get's it every time.

[Daedelus]

all fixed now thanks for all the quick help.