Your box is a complete and utter mess Shangrila, I'd consider running a repair if I were you.



Have a read of this from the boys in Redmond.

Startup Repair: frequently asked questions - Windows Vista Help

P.S. If that doesn't work re-install Vista via the disk or a Recovery Partition, which ever is applicable.

Can you describe what the problem with my box is? Is it a lot of files gone? I'd just like to know before I start some serious repairing. Just curious since so many things still work, which is unexpected if half my system is totally screwed up.

In particular, I'd like to know why IE 64 and one copy of WMP still work perfectly, and why regular IE works in Safe Mode, but not any other mode, while Firefox doesn't work at all.

I have no idea why your system is screwed up Shangrila but you yourself have outlined a lot of problems in post 15.

A repair of Vista will replace all your system files to what they once were.

Yes, there are a lot of problems. It's just that I don't like blindly fixing when I have no clue what it is that I'm fixing. Though I might have to do that soon enough anyway, worse luck.#!#

I'd just like to know if all the missing files listed by Hijackthis could explain my troubles, and what pattern of missing or corrupted files can explain my pattern of programs working or not working. Finally, while this board has concluded that I no longer have malware on this machine, I'd like to know if my current pattern of problems can be explained without needing an infection present.

I apologize that I'm asking for so much. It's just that I'm trying to be as safe as possible considering I still have most functionality that I need or want. I'll do as you said in a day or two, though, if no one can explain what exactly the problem is, or come up with any tests to figure out what the problem is.

The registry is most likely messed up big style, file paths will be missing, you have used CCleaner which in my opinion is lethal if used incorrectly.

I can only offer advice as to what you should so Shangrila, pulling Rabbits out of hats is beyond my forte.

I restored the registry to what it was before I used CCleaner once I figured it didn't actually work.

At least, can you tell me what the Hijackthis log means when it says, for example "O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\Alg.exe,-112 (ALG) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\alg.exe (file missing)"? Because Alg.exe physically exists in the location it says it should be in. If the problem is not in the actual files missing, will Vista repair do anything? If the problem is solely with the registry, can it explain IE 64 still working? Is there any way of fixing the registry short of reinstalling Vista?

I really want to avoid that, since it'll take hours and hours to reinstall all the updates, and while I still have my Vista disk, I don't have a clue where the disks with all my device drivers and whatnot are.

If the problem is a corrupted registry as Wolfeymole suggested, would windows repair do anything? Is there any tool for repairing such a problem?

I seem to have fixed the problem by running the system file checker listed in Crush's sig and rebooting. As far as I can tell, everything that was crashing before is now working, with the exception of the update utility on Firefox, which tells me "Update XML file malformed," though there is no crash when attempting. The SFC also said that it did not repair all corrupted files, though I'm not sure if it actually failed, or there were files that needed a reboot to repair. It said it saved a log file in windir\logs, but I've been unable to find it. Can someone tell me what name the log file should be and where it should be stored? I'd like to see if there are any other corrupted files that I should see about fixing.