Self-Closing Applications

[Ritalin]

Hey,
A friend of mine has asked me to fix a problem with his laptop.
His applications such as MS Outlook,MS word and Various other MS applications he uses regualy seem to be self-closing each time they are opened.

It's a fairly outdated laptop jam-packed will old files and games from the kids.
He had all his drivers/discs he needed for a clean reformated but one of the kids had ruined the CD-ROM drive by leaning on it and snapping it.
Wich also blew my plan of re-installing the MS applications wich keep crashing.

Any help would be great,


Ritalin.

[nihil]

Hi, and welcome to AO.

Which version of Windows and the MS Applications is he using? Are they fully updated and patched?

Has this started all of a sudden, or has it been progressive?

Has he loaded any new software or updated any before this started happening?

Does it have a floppy drive, or just the CD?

I would suggest starting with the following:

1. Uninstall stuff that he no longer uses or needs.
2. Get rid of unwanted temporary files, backups and stuff.
3. Run checkdisk or scandisk (depending on the version of Windows)
4. Update the OS and applications where appropriate.
5. Get CrapCleaner and run it.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

Then defragment the drive, preferably in safe mode or on startup.

You should be aiming for around 20% free space on the HDD, incidentally.

An online malware scan such as Panda or PC-Cillin wouldn't do any harm either.

Is his AV up to date?.........if it isn't that might be the problem........try disabling it and see if the Windows Apps problems persist.

Please let me know how you get on.