Windows 2000?

I know, it's really old, but it's all I've got, LOL.
I would really appreciate any help you could give me. I have an older Dell Dimension XPS T450, that came with Windows 98. At some point it was updated with 2000.
I've managed to fubar the unit several times over the last 2 years, but I've always been able to reboot the system from my copy of windows 2000, until now.
The computer has become so slow (have to mouse click 3 or 4 times on each item to get a response) that it's almost unusable. I attempted to boot it from my copy of 2000, and within a minute or so, it gives me this:
file\i386\halacpi.dll code 7- and wont continue.

Thanks in advance for your help

Melinda Reilly

Try F8 and go to safe mode. If you can get that far, download, update and run anti malware from ,malwarebytes.org

The run msconfig and disable what you don't need to load at startup. Click apply and reboot. Click ok and see what happens.

If you have AOL on the machine, delete all versions for now.

Hi Don,
Thanks for your response. I d/l malwarebytes, and tried to run it, but it started the scan and ran for about 55 seconds and just stopped. I did this twice.
Can you elaborate on the F8 thing? Do you mean from start up? Please forgive my ignorance. I dont have a great deal of computer savy. Thanks again

Update:
When I run Malwarebytes, it will scan to:
c:\winn\system32\msafd.dll
and then it freezes. It may not mean anything, but I thought I'd add this.
Thanks again

As soon as you turn on your computer, hold or tap F8 a few times. It should bring you to a boot menu. Use the up and down arrows to select safe mode. Update the program and try the scan again. If it freezes, they the full scan or whatever they call it.

Ok, on my 5th attempt, I finally got Malwarebytes to run. It found and deleted 3 infected items in my registry keys.
It's better now than it was, but it's still pretty slow (several mouse clicks on most commands to get a result).
Should I try to reboot from my disk, and can I do that from safe mode?
Thank you so much for the information you've provided.

Melinda, if you got your computer up and running again, look at how much RAM you have in the machine. You can check on this by right clicking My Computer. The general tab will tell you how much RAM you have in the machine. Given that you started with Windows 98, I'm thinking that you probably don't have nearly enough RAM to deal with today's RAM intensive programs.

Thanks for your response atno/tw.
I did that and found 261,668 KB RAM.
Is there a way to simply "dump" old files?

Not from RAM. RAM is being used by programs and you can't just "empty" it. To improve performance you need to at least double it. I have several older computers on Win2K here at work and they are all extremely sluggish as you are describing. I'm in the process of upgrading the RAM on all of them.

256k RAM is about the minimum you would want to run Win2K on.

Run Hijack This and post the log.

OK Don, here's the log from hijack this:

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.2
Scan saved at 12:37:46 PM, on 3/16/2009
Platform: Windows 2000 SP4 (WinNT 5.00.2195)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP1 (6.00.2800.1106)
Boot mode: Normal

Running processes:
C:\WINNT\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\services.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\aswUpdSv.exe
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashServ.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\svchost.exe
C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jqs.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\regsvc.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\MSTask.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\stisvc.exe
C:\WINNT\System32\WBEM\WinMgmt.exe
C:\WINNT\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINNT\Explorer.EXE
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashMaiSv.exe
C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashWebSv.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\ALWILS~1\Avast4\ashDisp.exe
C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jusched.exe
C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis\HijackThis.exe

R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Bar = http://us.rd.yahoo.com/customize/ycomp/ ... ch/ie.html
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://us.rd.yahoo.com/customize/ycomp/ ... .yahoo.com
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://frontier.my.yahoo.com
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = http://www.yahoo.com/
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = http://toolbar.ask.com/toolbarv/askRedi ... t=&gc=1&q=
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://www.yahoo.com/
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,Default_Search_URL = http://toolbar.ask.com/toolbarv/askRedi ... t=&gc=1&q=
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchURL,(Default) = http://toolbar.ask.com/toolbarv/askRedi ... t=&gc=1&q=%s
R3 - URLSearchHook: DefaultSearchHook Class - {C94E154B-1459-4A47-966B-4B843BEFC7DB} - C:\Program Files\AskSearch\bin\DefaultSearch.dll
R3 - URLSearchHook: SrchHook Class - {F4F10C1D-87C7-404A-B4B3-000000000000} - C:\PROGRA~1\DAP\SBSearch.dll (file missing)
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {02478D38-C3F9-4efb-9B51-7695ECA05670} - (no file)
O2 - BHO: Java(tm) Plug-In SSV Helper - {761497BB-D6F0-462C-B6EB-D4DAF1D92D43} - C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\ssv.dll
O2 - BHO: Java(tm) Plug-In 2 SSV Helper - {DBC80044-A445-435b-BC74-9C25C1C588A9} - C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jp2ssv.dll
O2 - BHO: JQSIEStartDetectorImpl - {E7E6F031-17CE-4C07-BC86-EABFE594F69C} - C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\lib\deploy\jqs\ie\jqs_plugin.dll
O3 - Toolbar: @msdxmLC.dll,-1@1033,&Radio - {8E718888-423F-11D2-876E-00A0C9082467} - C:\WINNT\system32\msdxm.ocx
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Synchronization Manager] mobsync.exe /logon
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [QuickTime Task] "C:\Program Files\QuickTime\qttask.exe" -atboottime
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [avast!] C:\PROGRA~1\ALWILS~1\Avast4\ashDisp.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SunJavaUpdateSched] "C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jusched.exe"
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [Messenger (Yahoo!)] "C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\YahooMessenger.exe" -quiet
O4 - HKUS\.DEFAULT\..\RunOnce: [^SetupICWDesktop] C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\Connection Wizard\icwconn1.exe /desktop (User 'Default user')
O4 - Global Startup: PalTalk.lnk = C:\Program Files\Paltalk Messenger\paltalk.exe
O9 - Extra button: PalTalk - {4EAFEF58-EEFA-4116-983D-03B49BCBFFFE} - C:\Program Files\Paltalk Messenger\Paltalk.exe (file missing)
O9 - Extra button: Related - {c95fe080-8f5d-11d2-a20b-00aa003c157a} - C:\WINNT\web\related.htm
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Show &Related Links - {c95fe080-8f5d-11d2-a20b-00aa003c157a} - C:\WINNT\web\related.htm
O16 - DPF: {0CCA191D-13A6-4E29-B746-314DEE697D83} (Facebook Photo Uploader 5) - http://upload.facebook.com/controls/Fac ... oader5.cab
O16 - DPF: {6414512B-B978-451D-A0D8-FCFDF33E833C} (WUWebControl Class) - http://www.update.microsoft.com/windows ... 7388425683
O16 - DPF: {8AD9C840-044E-11D1-B3E9-00805F499D93} (Java Runtime Environment 1.6.0) - http://javadl.sun.com/webapps/download/ ... leId=26688
O23 - Service: avast! iAVS4 Control Service (aswUpdSv) - ALWIL Software - C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\aswUpdSv.exe
O23 - Service: avast! Antivirus - ALWIL Software - C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashServ.exe
O23 - Service: avast! Mail Scanner - ALWIL Software - C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashMaiSv.exe
O23 - Service: avast! Web Scanner - ALWIL Software - C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashWebSv.exe
O23 - Service: Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service (dmadmin) - VERITAS Software Corp. - C:\WINNT\System32\dmadmin.exe
O23 - Service: Java Quick Starter (JavaQuickStarterService) - Sun Microsystems, Inc. - C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jqs.exe
O24 - Desktop Component 0: (no name) - http://images.paltalk.com/peoplepicstop ... 168794.jpg

--
End of file - 5129 bytes

I hope I did the right thing. I saw 2 files related to PALTALK, a program that I dont use anymore. So, I checked and fixed them both. It seems to have improved already.

Here are some more to fix if you haven't already

R3 - URLSearchHook: SrchHook Class - {F4F10C1D-87C7-404A-B4B3-000000000000} - C:\PROGRA~1\DAP\SBSearch.dll (file missing)

O9 - Extra button: Related - {c95fe080-8f5d-11d2-a20b-00aa003c157a} - C:\WINNT\web\related.htm

Add those to the list. ^^

Don, Grinch and ATNO, you guys are awsome!
This helped alot, and I learned something in the process: If you dont dont know what you're doing, dont screw with it. Find some one who knows.
It's much better than it was.
Do you think it's just a case of "big internet and little computer?
I'm asking this, because I want to know how to avoid this in the future.
Thanks again guys! Big hug n kiss for all three of ya!