Parts of Windows XP unusable

[Grasky]

I have windows xp home ed and recently started having problems with it. It was crashing and the help/support section would not work i get the message 'windows cannot load help and support because a system service is not running, to fix the problem start the service named help and support'!!
Also I cannot use a printer because there are not printers in the control panel printers file but I have checked and the software is still on there. There are lots of other smaller glitches and problems. I updated windows from microsoft update centre, but this did not help and I could not fix it with the windows disk, SO, we were told it must be a virus (although I have firewall and virus scans running all the time) and we should reformatt the hard drive etc. I bought another hard drive and copied all files to it then and reformatted then re-loaded windows. but the problem remains - am at a loss at what to do and I am not very knowledgeable either. Please can anyone help with any ideas. Thanks.

Pentium 4
256 ram
40 gb hard drive
Geforce 4

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

"Help and Support" and "Printer Spooler" services don't seem to be running.

Check if you can start them from Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Services.

Also check if there are more services that aren't running but set to "Automatic".

 

[Grasky]

Thanks for replying - I tried what you said and got the help/support and the printer running. Computer is still really slow and now the sound has stopped working (have checked all the usual on the help files).