Maker tech hub - AI · 3D print · Pi · ESP32 · plus the classic tech archive.

Free ESP32 kit · AI tools directory · Books · Archive

Classic tech archive · 2026 bridge. Historical tip — verify commands and threat context before reusing.

Full archive · Archive → modern map · Start here

Classic tip · Classic

Disinfecting a PC… part 7

Ok, another reboot after the BHO cleaning. Things are a good deal more responsive now, less disc swapping going on. (I suspect that those three missing BHO entries may have been causing the slow down…

Written by

Avery J. Parker

IT veteran, maker educator, and author of Network Ninja, 3D Printing Mastery, and AI Workflow Mastery. Business IT: Diversified Tech Solutions.

Ok, another reboot after the BHO cleaning. Things are a good deal more responsive now, less disc swapping going on. (I suspect that those three missing BHO entries may have been causing the slow down, but I don't know.) Installing wintop so that processes can be monitored. Also, getting spybot S&D *(search and destroy) installed and copying update from disc. The system is pretty much won at this point, I don't see anything running that I haven't LET run at boot, everything that I had as suspect has been disabled, now it's just a matter of cleaning up the remnants and leftovers.


Spybot has detected and prevented a process from running. (c:\windows\goidr.exe (hyperlinker)) 200+ problems found. OK - there's one I missed, hyperlinker. It seems to be taken care of now. There were ~234 problems. No log file available. I attempted to print to file and ran into spool errors again.

At this pointI was very suspicious that many core windows files (more than just regedit.exe and scanregw.exe had been renamed and were useless. So, I did a reinstall of Windows into the same directory.

Spool32 errors had been coming up on trying to access printer information. After reinstall that seemed good, the Lexmark printer showed up in the list of printers (before I just saw the Add a printer icon followed by a spool32 error.)

Now that the system seems more stable and somewhat safe, it's time to install a network card and hook it to the network. I want to make sure it get's all windows updates available before I'm done with it. (Also install tightvnc so that I don't have to keep running back and forth from my desk.)