Windows XP Startup Problem - HELP!!!

[superrid]

About one week ago, I logged on to my computer before a business trip to check email, and shut down. During the trip, my wife was using the computer, and wasn't really paying attention to what she was doing. I booted up the computer after coming back, and found that two of the three accounts had problems when logging on. When I log on, my desktop shows up, and the icons and windows task bar show up, but I can't select any of the icons, and the cursor turns into an hour glass when I mouse over the task bar. I can access Task Manager with CTRL+ALT+DEL, but any function invoving file and folder navigation all fail. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do?

[kenboyles72]

first off, never let a woman touch a computer. JK anyways, log into windows hit ctrl+alt+del, find explorer.exe, end that process. then click file, new process, type in c:\windows\explorer.exe. maybe restarting windows explorer might clear it up. try that and i'll see what else i can come up with.

[mazdarx7-64]

See if there is a process that is running at a very high percent, like over 45%, if it is something other than the system idle precess try killing it and see if that helps.

[kenboyles72]

when's the last time you scanned for viruses, spyware, adware, ect... like mazda said, check for any processes using a lot of your cpu. also in task manager(ctrl+alt+del) click the applications tab and see if any programs are not responding.

[superrid]

I have run Windows AntiSpyware and Norton AntiVirus abouth 10 times, with no results. While two of the accounts were affected, I was able to use a third to run Norton and AntiSpyware. Yesterday, on the advice of an IT professional at work, I nuked the two effected accounts (leaving one account), and added a new account to replace the ones I had deleted. It worked fine until I logged in today. Now the two accounts on the computer are having the same problem as before, and I can't get access to any of the admin tools in Windows XP. When I try to start a new process involving accessing files or Windows tools, I either can use what appears for about 30-45 seconds before it freezes, or nothing appears at all.

[superrid]

I have stopped explorer.exe and restarted it. I get about ten seconds before it freezes up again. When I terminate the process and leave it off, I can run pretty much any program. I haven't tested everything, but I can get into the administrator tools. The only thing that still won't work is explorer.exe.

[kenboyles72]

do you have sp1 or sp2 installed? if so try this. ctrl+alt_del > stop explorer > go to file > new task > type "C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386\Explorer.exe " (w/o quotes). maybe the current explorer.exe is corrupt. so try the other that was provided in the service pack files. if the one in sp files works then you can delete the old explorer.exe from c:\windows and copy the other file from the sp file into your windows directory(you would have to do this at command prompt, by booting up with boot disk)

[famosbrown]

Norton sucks and that Windows Anti-spyware sucks.

Download the free install of Lavasoft's Ad-Aware from another PC, placing it on a piece of media and install it on your current machine (do this if you cannot accesss the internet due to your problems, otherwise download from your computer). Also download Spybot, and run that one. Check your Add and Remove Programs, and make sure you don't have anything suspicious or unknown installed on your machine, i.e. 1800-searchengine, BullsEye Network, etc., etc., etc. Make sure NOrton is up to date with virus definitions. You might have to even do some registry editing, so I would download HiJackThis to get a log of some common spyware entries. Run Defrag. Use Windows System Restore. Download Everest or some other program to check your temperatures. Download a memory test and test your memory to make sure that isn't causing the lock ups.

If none of that works, use anything else that may be posted by others.

If none of that work, back up your data to another hard drive or type of media, and insert your Windows Installation or Recovery Disk to start over (you might want to reformat your hard drive before reinstalling...up to you).

Famos

[PolloPesca]

i know what you mean Superrid, the same exact problem is happening to my computer.
-cant access any programs other than task manger.
-when dragging a box it leaves echos of it self.
-hour glass on start bar.
-basically it's like start up doesn't finish loading.

i still have yet to find any permanent solutions to this, let alone find out how it happened. but i have come across 2 temporary solutions to at least get normal access running again.

(1) starting up in safe mode and then do a system restore since even in safe mode you can't do anything other than get to the task manger. after the restore everything will be back to normal, but after turning your computer off for about 2 times after the problem will resurface.

(2)do as kenboyles72 suggested and end the process explorer.exe and restart it as a new task. it doesn't always work the first time and usually half's to be repeated a good 3-4 times and it's only good for 10 sec to 2 min befor frezzing up.

since you computer seams to have the same problem at around the same time I'm starting to think that it may have been a virus or update causing it... then again my sister was the last to use the computer before this all happened, lol.

anywho i'm gona try fixing explorer.exe by repairing it with the original XP instalation disk, or by downloading "discovery console". i'll let ya all know how it turnes out.

[superrid]

After a long couple of days over the weekend, I tried everything I could to find the source of the problem (thank to all who posted possible solutions). Nothing was working, so I did what every person at Microsoft told me to do: I had to reinstall Windows and start fresh. Windows works fine, and the computer is back to normal. Thanks again to all who replied.

superrid