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Jeff Belany
05-16-2011, 10:13 AM
Don't know if anyone has had this problem or not but it has been getting worse on my computer. I have been running X4 for over a year and a half with very few problems. The last few weeks I have a hard time starting my first file of the day. I chose a file and Corel just stalls with the hourglass running. The only option is to shut it down. I then start again, chosing a difference file and sometimes it works and sometime it stalls again. This can happen 4-5 times before a file opens. BUT, once a file opens, the program is fine for the rest of the day. I have put in the Corel disk and done a 'repair' a few times. This seems to help for a couple of days or so. I assume I will have to do a full reinstall but thought I's see if anything like this has happened to anyone else. If so, did you have any success fixing it?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

Mike Null
05-16-2011, 10:33 AM
I suspect it's something else on your PC. How long since you did routine maintenance on it?

Jeff Belany
05-16-2011, 11:39 AM
I'm pretty good about regular maintenance, virus & malware scans, backups, defrags. Don't mess with the registry much, registry cleaners scare me. Any suggestions?

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

Nestor Fernandez
05-16-2011, 11:50 AM
I agree with Mike. I'm a PC guy and take care of a lot of computers in my office, and this sounds like a typical condition when ad-ware/malware are on a machine. It seems to affect all sorts of other programs that run on the system. The first thing I do is scan the machine to see if you have any garbage on it. If anything is found, delete the problems, reboot and, hopefully, you should be all set. The first approach we take is to run MalwareBytes. You can find this program at http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html

The free version is fine. Before running the program be sure to check for updates, then let it do it's thing. Good Luck!

Dee Gallo
05-16-2011, 12:18 PM
I agree with Mike. I'm a PC guy and take care of a lot of computers in my office, and this sounds like a typical condition when ad-ware/malware are on a machine. It seems to affect all sorts of other programs that run on the system. The first thing I do is scan the machine to see if you have any garbage on it. If anything is found, delete the problems, reboot and, hopefully, you should be all set. The first approach we take is to run MalwareBytes. You can find this program at http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html

The free version is fine. Before running the program be sure to check for updates, then let it do it's thing. Good Luck!

Nestor,

Not being a pc guy or any kind of techie, here's my question: if I already have NOD32 (anti-virus program) running, does that do what MalwareBytes does? If not, will they interfere with each other, such as Norton would? My pc has been okay, but I'm wary of stuff like this since I have no experience with it. I rarely use it to go online, but once in a while I do.

Thanks, dee

Nestor Fernandez
05-16-2011, 12:36 PM
Dee,

NOD32 does a pretty good job of detecting most annoyances that are downloaded as long as you keep the definition up to date. I don't recall if NOD32 does it, but most programs nowadays automatically check for updates and install as needed. You might want to make sure this is happening, if not, simply hit the "Check for Updates" command to make sure you are up to date with the virus definitions.

MalwareBytes is more specifically directed at adware and malware than your standard virus. The nice thing about it is that it will not interfere with the rest of the computer processes if you decide to run it. It is only active when you manually run it. Although you may have to temporarily disable your NOD32 program before running it (NOD32 may think MalwareBytes is a virus, or vice versa, but it will tell you if you do), running MalwareBytes should not harm your machine, or NOD32, in any way. It simply checks if there is garbage on your system, clears it off, and then terminates. Again, it is very important that you make sure it is up to date with it's definitions before running, otherwise it is useless.

Hope this helps!

John Noell
05-17-2011, 1:36 AM
NOD32 and MalwareBytes play nice together. (I have a lot of experience in fixing PCs.) NOD32 updates automatically but you must be connected to the 'net. (No downloadable definitions to apply manually.) Corel can be pretty buggy so it could be either malware or a corrupt part of X4. Haven't tried it any time recently, but it used to be that hitting F8 immediately on Corel startup made it load with defaults only. If that makes the first file problem go away, it's probably Corel at fault. But I ALWAYS recommend running MalwareBytes as a good idea, even when you are not (yet) having problems.

Dee Gallo
05-17-2011, 8:45 AM
Thanks Nestor and john, good to know! I'll check into it. My NOD32 is on auto-update, so it does do that already.

Boy I love this place! Someone always knows whatever you need to know!!!

Nestor Fernandez
05-17-2011, 9:46 AM
FYI, If your machine ever gets REALLY bound up, and seems like there is no fix, another VERY good program to run is ComboFix (http://www.combofix.org/). Be patient and don't panic when the machine reboots several times and the screen turns blue while the scan is performed. MalwareBytes is excellent, but ComboFix sometimes gets what even MalwareBytes misses.

Jeff Belany
05-17-2011, 10:09 AM
I do run Malwarebytes regularly, just ran it yesterday. I'll try starting Corel with F8 and see if that works.

Thanks,

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

Bill Cunningham
05-17-2011, 9:23 PM
I use a freeware/guiltware program called RegSeeker (http://download.cnet.com/RegSeeker/3000-18512_4-68382.html?tag=mncol;1) for cleaning the registry. It's super simple, automatic, and makes a backup first. In the several years I've been using it, it has never done anything to cause me any problem. If your computer is used on Facebook, Pogo etc. Your registry is probably HUGE and in dire need of paring down and deleting the trash. My wife is addicted to CityVille (I don't even know what that does!) Every so often, her netbook slows to a crawl. The first time I ran RegSeeker, it picked up over 8000 deletable/useless entries in the registry. Once it scans and lists the useless stuff, you simply click 'select all' and press the delete button.. Beware, there is a 'report'(?) on Regseeker that actually looks like a shill attempt for another product. It laments about the "confusing" list of options available in the left hand window. Apparently the option 'Clean Registry' didn't help dispel his confusion:D

Dan Hintz
05-18-2011, 7:07 AM
My fave is Eusing Free Registry Cleaner. Been using it for years, never been spammed, never had to fight with off pop-up windows asking me to donate, etc.

Bill Cunningham
05-19-2011, 9:08 PM
Actually, it was wrong of me to name Regseeker as 'guiltware' .. The front page says you 'can' register and for a fee I suppose get support, but neither is needed to run the program forever, and there are no pop ups begging for money.. It's just a clean simple program, that does a number of useful tasks

Jeff Belany
05-20-2011, 10:44 AM
Dan,

I tried the Eusing Free Registry Cleaner and it did seem to help. Not 100% but better. Thanks.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

Dan Hintz
05-20-2011, 11:46 AM
It's not a complete solution, but it definitely clears out a lot of the detritus that collects over the months/years.

John Noell
05-20-2011, 3:27 PM
When I worked as a repair tech and trainer, we loved people with "automatic registry cleaners" as thery were a steady source of income. Nearly every one raved about how good their cleaner was, but then we got to repair the damages -- which they almost always refused to believe came from their beloved reg cleaner. Some tech forums will not even consider your problem if you are using a reg cleaner.

Joe De Medeiros
05-20-2011, 3:49 PM
just as a pre-caution I would make sure you have your harddrive backed up, I was experiencing something similar, just before my harddrive died, it could be just spyware like everyone else suggests, but you can never be too cautious.

Duncan Crawford
05-21-2011, 3:28 PM
Don't know if anyone has had this problem or not but it has been getting worse on my computer. I have been running X4 for over a year and a half with very few problems. The last few weeks I have a hard time starting my first file of the day. I chose a file and Corel just stalls with the hourglass running. The only option is to shut it down. I then start again, chosing a difference file and sometimes it works and sometime it stalls again. This can happen 4-5 times before a file opens. BUT, once a file opens, the program is fine for the rest of the day. I have put in the Corel disk and done a 'repair' a few times. This seems to help for a couple of days or so. I assume I will have to do a full reinstall but thought I's see if anything like this has happened to anyone else. If so, did you have any success fixing it?

Any advice greatly appreciated.
Jeff in northern Wisconsin

Jeff,

If all else fails, and there's been a lot of good advice in this thread, there is an alternative that solves this quickly whenever it occurs. As a retired IT security guy I'm not a huge fan of Windows, but it's required to drive my Epilog Mini-18, run CorelDraw, etc. So, I have an inexpensive Apple laptop hooked via USB to the laser in the shop. I run Windows XP under VMware Fusion (see http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/overview.html) on both the laptop and a desktop Mac in my office. CorelDraw X4 and X5, Photolaser Plus, 1-Touch Photolaser and assorted other Windows stuff runs just fine in the virtual machine. VMware (and Parallels, a similar product) are sufficiently good emulation environments that both serial and USB drivers for my diesel truck reprogrammer also work, along with several different printers and even VCarve.

Anyhow, the pertinent/neat feature of VMware is called a 'snapshot,' done via one mouse click, and which saves your current functional Windows environment. I'll take a snapshot after every Windows security update, after any new program install, or whenever I've made some other significant change-- or at least monthly. That deals with the operating system integrity. The number of snapshots is only limited by your disk space. As for engraving jobs, those get saved to an 'engraved jobs' folder on the Windows desktop once run, and I'll drag and drop that onto the office Mac desktop before I quit for the day (or lunch, or otherwise intend to be away for a bit). The office Mac disk is backed up hourly via Apple's Time Machine to another disk drive. For that matter, the entire VMware disk image on the laptop and office Mac with all the snapshots included are backed up the same way.

So, when things in Windows 'go south' as they rather tend to do on multi-use machines (and I'm absolutely not trying to start any sort of flame war here :-), I can revert to the latest OS snapshot with one mouse click and be back immediately to a known-good setup. So far the worst that's happened to me in that case is loss of the file I've been working on (on the laptop) when things hung. Given that I do my laser design work on a desktop Mac (using CorelDraw and VMware again) or with the Mac version of Photoshop, what's on the laptop in the shop is usually just a possibly tweaked version of what's on the desktop box. So, to date I've not lost any significant amount of work.

The controversial part of all this, from an IT perspective, is that the laptop VMware instance is NOT running any antivirus program, since the only place the browser *ever* goes is to Microsoft Windows Update once a month, automatically, and the only file server the laptop *ever* sees is the desktop Mac via WiFi from shop to office.

This sort of setup is definitely robust, but getting to it does require the motivation to change out some computer hardware. That said, when I went this route I found that crash recovery, program hangs, whatever were no longer any sort of issue-- and that gave me more time to mess with new designs, perchance to someday make a buck and/or lurk on this forum :-)

duncan