Windows XP forum: Why is my control panel not responding??

Click Start and in the RUN box type MSCONFIG, then click the Startup tab. There is the list of many programs being started. To speed things up, you can uncheck anything but your antivirus program. Try 2 or 3 of these at a time, reboot, and see if that improves performance. I usually leave the hardware related things checked because they don't usually take much resource, and can be handy.

Sorry, I didn't give any more information. I have Windows XP, Windows 7. I will try some of the things mentioned. It is an older computer that I don't do a lot on, so the maintenance may be lacking. I recently did do a "disk cleanup" and "Defragmentation". I'm trying to remove some old files that I don't need anymore, and that is where I am having problems. thanks for the help.

Yes, I'm going to the Add/Remove Programs, but it will not open up so I can select which program I want to uninstall. . Thanks

The malware does that to block removal.

How do I get rid of it? The Norton I have installed now was supposed to block it. Thanks

As to Norton, it only blocks what it knows. Also, if you install some app, unless it's something it knows is bad, it let's it get installed.

-> You bring up a good point. Has the day come where PCs should be under some control by others such as Apple or Microsoft without the "Personal" choices? That is, most of the malware I encounter was installed by the owner. Norton and other such tools can only block what they know about so what is the cure?

Bob

Is there a way to override the settings that possible "malware" has created? Of course if it is "malware" causing THIS problem, it may be causing the other problems I have that I thought was just "overload" of my hard drive. How do I fix it?? Thanks...

Many of us use Grif's fine advice I shared in my first post. There are many other factors that could be at play here but I've yet to see where you began the scanning.

Instead you share you have Norton so we get to discuss that's not enough and why.

If you feel your hard drive is overloaded, that is, full, given you've had XP for over a decade you should be pretty good at making space by moving old files out to backup or the trash bin.
Bob

Sorry, I was too much of a hurry to catch the links. I'm sure these are reputable links. I can't hardly stand to go through any more "hang ups" than I already have. I just got over a month's worth with my main computer ( glitch in IE ). I'll try to look more into it when I get time. Thanks a lot for your help.

Safe Mode often gets you around some of these problems. It is also best for checking for malware too since some of it can hide itself from the antivirus checkers in normal mode.

Good luck.