sigh... time to reformat

[HeavenKiller]

well, for some reason last night, when I went to launch tf2, the computer started minimizing and maximizing the window on it's own... the same goes for DoD:S... it does it once when IS tart L4D, but then it stops... I don't know what is going on, but I think it is time to format my windows drive and reinstall my OS... as such, I won't be around until sometime Saturday... going to start the process tomorrow night, but I need to reinstall everything :-/

 

[mrcool]

Might wanna run Spybot and AVG when you're done at night. You have nothing to lose but several hours of formatting, installing, and tweaking.

 

[Zergspower]

You might just have some currept files inside the steam folder itself since you are saying only steam games. do you have a non-steam game that does it?

 

[CrimsonAegis]

when I went to launch tf2, the computer started minimizing and maximizing the window on it's own

- I get that occasionally, it usually happens when I click on the desktop a split second before it comes up and glitch the minimize/maximize thing. Mostly it stops on its own, but once I had to do a hard restart.
I was only experiencing this problem on WinXP; it stopped when I went to Vista.

 

[HeavenKiller]

I ratn Spybot, Norton Anti-virus, and Adaware while in safe mode, I managed to snag 29 torjans I can't get rid of...

For the moment it is just the steam games, but it has been acting kinda buggy recently... I'll attempt to check out Mass Effect and see what it does...

Unfortunately, I know how that glitch works and I didn't click anything... it never stops on its own, and I always have to restart... and I wouldn't touch vista with a ten foot pole... even if someone paid me enough to cover the installation of Vista 64 Pro and doubled my ram, I still would have to hesitate on letting Vista touch my system...

 

[caffeine]

If you can't remove any infections in safe mode, you can do a boot time scan.

 

[USMC SatComm TeK Stubster]

Hopefully you wont be down long enough to go through withdrawals.

 

[Sneakers O'Toole]

I have the problem every once in awhile I just alt tab out of tf2 or dod source then click back into the game and it will minimize maximize a few times then stop. Try that before you reformat the box.

 

[Arn0t]

yeah, i have had that problem with TF2 before, but what i do is play the game where you try to get task manager open and click on end process before it maximized or minimizes again. sometimes i get it right away, others it takes me forever.

Make sure you try multiple things before re-formatting (if it comes to that) because i would hate to see you reformat for basically no reason.

 

[Sneakers O'Toole]

This seems to be a problem with all the source games on everyones computers. Reformation will most likely not help at all.

 

[HeavenKiller]

I appreciate all teh suggestions, but this didn't start happening until Wednesday night, and it was after I did some pretty stupid things...

Anyways, I have already gone through most of the suggestions for attempts to "fix" it... and actually, my computer was due for a format anyways (I usually reformat once per 6 months on xp systems)

honestly, if the problem isn't solved easily, it is not worth my time to fuss with it, it is more time efficient to just wipe and start over... I have a RAID 1 array with all my storage, and separate drives for my OS and programs respectively, so to crash the system out and start over isn't too big of a deal...

 

[mrcool]

I used to reformat every 6 months or so, but I think the best idea now is to reformat, get a general set up, then make an image. That way, next time, you can just restore from the image. You won't be right back where you were, but it's still a lot further along then just reformatting.

Good luck!

 

[HeavenKiller]

Well I'm back up, not fully functional yet, but my drives are back up and drivers are updated... now to get the fun stuff installed and reset my firefox settings, etc...

Mr Cool, want to clue me in on how to make an image? I have my O/S on one HD and my programs on a second, and my storage on a RAID 1 array

 

[mrcool]

Yeah, grab one of these programs. Grab Acronis if you have a Seagate/Maxtor drive. That's what I've used. Not sure about the other programs, read the descriptions to see what suits you.

 

[HeavenKiller]

Well I was back up adn running yesterday... and I Was playing TF2 and CS:S... now today it started doing it again... I'm so frustrated... I've never had this problem, adn now I can't seem to be able to play my games... SVChost "sets up personalized settings" on boot (which is something I really hadn't seen before)... and it is listed at 14.0Kb... I don't know if that is causing soemthing, but I need to sort this out in a hurry...

 

[HeavenKiller]

so I figgured out a way to abate this problem... set the launch options to -sw to launch in a window, once the menu is up you can revert it to fullscreen with any effects...