Insufficient resources exist....

minara · #1 (**permalink**) 24-09-2009, 12:05 PM

Hi there, I'm hoping someone here can help me

My 10 year old son is running a computer which has been constructed from old parts my husband had upgraded from his system. The purpose of my son's computer was to give him something to do, such as watch YouTube, play video games, and surf the internet.

However, recently he's taken to downloading tons of free trials of programs, and more than once I have had to clean his system from adware/spyware and uninstall those programs. I've disabled downloading in Windows Security, and put a password-protected lock on .exe downloading in Firefox.

For about a week he's been getting a system error anytime he goes to open a program, regardless of the program itself, or start IE. "Insufficient resources exist to complete requested service" or some such. It's very frustrating because not only will the programs not run, but the entire system locks up and you have to manually reboot the computer.

Is there any way I can fix this? What is causing it?

Digerati · #2 (**permalink**) 24-09-2009, 01:56 PM

Please understand there are badguys out there targeting young children - 10 years old is very young and needs to be supervised 100% of the time while on the Internet.

The exact error message would be helpful, as well as some information about the computer, and patch levels of XP.

"Resources" in this case typically means memory - either RAM, or disk space. I would start by purging the hard drives of clutter with Windows (XP or Vista) Disk Cleanup, ATF Cleaner or CCleaner. If using CCleaner, uncheck the option to install the Yahoo toolbar during installation. Before first use, go to Options > Settings > Advanced and ensure Only delete files in Windows Temp folders older than 48 hours is unchecked. Know your site credentials (user names and passwords) for sites you frequent before cleaning; you may have to login again at next visit.

Go through Control Panel's Add and Remove Programs list to uninstall programs not used.

Download and install Malwarebytes's Anti-Malware (MBAM) and scan as follows:

Check for updates before scanning,
Select Perform quick scan > Scan,
When complete, click OK, then Show Results,
Ensure all is selected, and click Remove Selected,
When complete, save the log in Notepad to a convenient place for future reference.

Repeat for all computers in the "Trusted Zone" of your network (your side of the Internet "gateway" - typically the cable or DSL modem).

dcghelp · #3 (**permalink**) 25-09-2009, 07:18 PM

Couldnt have said it better Digerati
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