Windows 7: Basically, no game will run right anymore.

Its a little complicated. At first this rig ran older games fine the first thing I booted up was EU2. Now everytime I try to run certain games (KOTOR, EU2, Civ3, prob more havent checked.) the game boots but it doesnt...
I'll try to explain. The program is running, I can see it in task manager, but nothing happens, except that my processor starts sweating something fierce. It never gets above 42 playing Red Alert 3 at max settings yet little old EU2 makes it go upwards of 45. Why? Because about 10 processes called rundll32.exe are running. When I close the main rundll32 process, all of them and the game stop running.
I've let it sit till it gets to 49 degrees for about 35 min. It simply cant run these games and it used to fine.
Help?

Since it's all game related,could it be video card problem?

Nah, runs COD4 and RA3 and plenty of games just fine

hi DavidFulero, and welcome to seven forums,

have you tried running these old games in compatability modes?

right-click on the shortcut, go to the compatability tab, and try running the games in xp sp3 mode. you can also try disabling visual themes and desktop composition in the shortcut settings.

let us know if it helps.

I havent but since it worked before it seems like that wouldnt fix it? But i'll try anyway. I have a suspicion that glary utilities made some kind of registry change or something.

Have you tried system restore?

No, where's that?
It sounds a little concerning though, does it erase stuff?

Oh and compatibility mode did not work, it still just sat there hogging system resources, except that there was the compatibility mode window in the foreground lol.
Yeah I've taken to just firing up my Mac Mini in xp if I ever want to play older games. But it would be more convenient to not have to switch computers all the time

It's inexplicable why your relatively strong machine can't run these games like butter? Have you tried updating DirectX, all DX versions with the Feb. 2010 redist? Download details: DirectX Redist (February 2010)

If it were me, I'd also do an av deep scan, followed up by a Malwarebytes scan: Malwarebytes

Hi David,

See link in my sig. Troubleshooting Game Issues.