am i making some progress?

i've got a contradiction, in front of me:

1) i can't figure out what the pagefile and hiberfil files are actually supposed to say in the system tab, and my vm isn't helping because it's not there at all. i'm going to check the 90s laptop (which is xp.) and get back to you on it.
2) but, after catching those shady update files and deleting references to them in the registry, i didn't get my expected catroot update, indicating that i appear to have halted the process.

maybe.

i have a clean image if it breaks, again. as mentioned: i actually need to watch it break a few times to understand what's happening. and, when i think i've fixed something, i can add it to the image.

for now, i'm going to eat again. i'm getting better, but i still need fuel.