MS Paint's "health" deteriorating, along with rest of computer

[Safe-Keeper]

Ok, so my copy of MS Paint has been "deteriorating" lately, along with my computer starting to "act up" in a thousand small ways.

Some time ago, it simply would no longer accept screenshots, which is a problem as I'm a Battlefield series mod mapper and need to be able to take and submit screenshots of my WIP map. I'd hit Print Screen, go into Paint, hit Ctrl+V, image would show up. Simple. Now it just says it "can't read data from clipboard".

As if that wasn't bad enough, now it also refuses to handle zoomed images correctly. When I zoom in, the image goes black. If I move the cursor around doing something like drawing with a pencil, whatever's next to the pencil line shows up, but everything else remains black. When I zoom out, the image is back to 100% normal + the newly drawn pencil lines. I wish I could post a screenshot, but I can't, since, again, MS Paint no longer accepts screenshots:(.

This is happening at the same time as my Windows seems to be "deteriorating". The computer for some reason checked both C and D drives "for consistency" some days back, and I've had some problems with the desktop not showing properly and whatnot (I'll be in Firefox, for example, and when I minimize the window the desktop doesn't show - instead, the Firefox window remains on screen, except I can't click anything until I go back into Firefox, of course). Tiny things like this seem to happen more and more frequently.

I've done a virus test and deleted what I found (a trojan) and some adware. What more can I do? Is there a way to uninstall and reinstall Paint from the Control Panel?

[elgarak]

Back in my dark Windows days ;), I remember to have seen problems like this with a damaged graphics card driver (either by hardware problems -- some of your errors might be hard drive failures -- or from the malware you found). So updating the graphics card driver might help.

[Safe-Keeper]

Thanks for the hint.

I've also been thinking of making a backup of my 2.63 GB of photos taken with various digital cameras over a period of three years, as well as various screenshots, etc.. I'm thinking this might be a good time;).

[Giraffe107]

Ok, so my copy of MS Paint

There's your problem.

Ok just kidding. Have you tried doing a disk defrag?
I agree with elgarak, try to update all of your drivers.
Have you done a spyware scan in addition to the virus scan? Some spyware really mucks up your system resources.
As a last resort, you may be best off backing-up your files, and uninstalling and then reinstalling windows, if you still have the recovery or install disk. What version of windows are you using?

[shadron]

One cheap solution to try is to rebuild windows from scratch. Unfortunately, that would also mean reinstalling whatever apps you need as well, and assumes you have disks to cover everything. Back in win98 days we used to totally rebuild the software load on machines every six months; with Windows XP, that has generally gone to two years, but when you need it, you need it. Corruption (not logical corruption of disk files, but errors in the registry and such, as well as cruft left over from adding and removing software, not to speak of the depredations of viruses and malware) tend to degrade things after a while. These were/are machines that get heavy use - my client machine runs 12 hours a day easily, doing software builds and database work.

If you need assistance with doing this, "Should you choose to accept this task...", I'm willing to help guide you by PM and/or email.

[JoeEllison]

Ok, so my copy of MS Paint has been "deteriorating" lately, along with my computer starting to "act up" in a thousand small ways.

Some time ago, it simply would no longer accept screenshots, which is a problem as I'm a Battlefield series mod mapper and need to be able to take and submit screenshots of my WIP map. I'd hit Print Screen, go into Paint, hit Ctrl+V, image would show up. Simple. Now it just says it "can't read data from clipboard".

As if that wasn't bad enough, now it also refuses to handle zoomed images correctly. When I zoom in, the image goes black. If I move the cursor around doing something like drawing with a pencil, whatever's next to the pencil line shows up, but everything else remains black. When I zoom out, the image is back to 100% normal + the newly drawn pencil lines. I wish I could post a screenshot, but I can't, since, again, MS Paint no longer accepts screenshots:(.

This is happening at the same time as my Windows seems to be "deteriorating". The computer for some reason checked both C and D drives "for consistency" some days back, and I've had some problems with the desktop not showing properly and whatnot (I'll be in Firefox, for example, and when I minimize the window the desktop doesn't show - instead, the Firefox window remains on screen, except I can't click anything until I go back into Firefox, of course). Tiny things like this seem to happen more and more frequently.

I've done a virus test and deleted what I found (a trojan) and some adware. What more can I do? Is there a way to uninstall and reinstall Paint from the Control Panel?

As a PC technician, all I can say is that if you can find someone like me locally, we will make you computer work by sheer force of will if nothing else works.

IOW, I think your computer can be fixed, although there may be a lot of work involved. Do you still have your original Windows disc?

[Safe-Keeper]

Updating drivers actually worked like a charm:).
I'll consider sending the thing off for maintenance, though. It might still be within its warranty period.

[JoeEllison]

Is your video card broken?

[Wudang]

MS paint? Have you tried paint.net?

[Hellbound]

From what you're describing, it sounds as if your computer's memory may be going bad.

The clipboard is a memory location that stores your cuts and copies until you paste them. Bad memory could cause this area to be unreadable. Likewise, when you zoom images you're working with your memory spaces. Also, many of your hard drive files could be corrupted by memory problems.

Whatever you do, do NOT do a defrag until you check your RAM. There are several free memory check programs you can get. Most manufacturers have diagnostics you can download for free (such as Dell or HP). Microsoft offers a memory check program, as well. These will run from a bootable CD or a floppy disk. I'd look at this before doing anything that will involve a lot of modifications to data.

[elgarak]

In any case, backup your data! In particular since there's a hardware failure looming.

As the old saying goes: There are 10b types of computer users: Those who have experienced data failure, and those who will.

My last harddrive failure was nasty: It just stopped working in the middle of everything. No warning beforehand.