W32\forbot-gen making life horrible

[nihil]

Hi,

If you believe M$, SP4 is supposed to make Win2000 MORE stable

The behaviour you describe is typical of a machine infested with malware, so I would certainly give it the scans mentioned.

How much (%) free hard disk space have you? A shortage of disk space is also likely to produce those symptoms. You really should have 20% free or better, or defragmentation will not work properly. Speaking of which...........when did you last defragment it?

This is best done in safe mode, as is the malware scanning. I would suggest that you schedule some downtime for "essential maintenance"................yeah, yeah, I can hear the whining already, but it will make life easier

Good luck mate!

EDIT: The compression utilities in datamases and mailing systems don't work properly if you don't have enough free space, either. This will produce quite dramatic performance degeneration as well.

[Maverick811]

Much like nihil has stated, it is sounding to me more and more like you just need to perfrom a major cleanup of that machine. This cleanup would include a disk defrag, a registry clean, full malware/spyware cleanup, uninstallation of non-needed Windows components & applications, perhaps a full Scandisk, full virus scan NOT using your current AV application, and of course, updates of any patches. Others already hinted to this fact, but why have the machine exposed to the wild if you're not going to patch it? You're just asking for trouble which will in turn lead to even more hassles and troubles from this machine.

[pegasys]

I would just like to thank everyone for the advice given it has been greatly received I am going to do everything stated including patch it. People in the UK shouldn't be able to hear the scream due to the local fireworks events being held but it will be there, Wish me luck Although as I am dealing with microsoft I shouldn't need it

LOL