[donnahamann]

I am working on my mother's computer. It has been giving her a lot of problems, most of which are related to having way to many programs running at startup and not properly maintaining her PC against spyware and such.

I stopped everything from running at startup but her computer wouldn't stay running after startup. When I would log in to her account it would begin to load and then restart.

I just finished doing a repair of XP and now when I go to log in to her account, the desktop background loads, but then it hangs. I can move the mouse and I can get to task manager via ctrl + alt + del. Fromt here I can load programs, but I am unable to get explorer.exe to load. Even if I run it from taskmanger the taskbar and start menu flash at the bottom of the screen and then disappear. The process never loads.

I looked this up on microsoft support here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555177 but all it suggests is logging off and restarting. That obviously didn't work.

Can anyone help me figure this out? Thanks!

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Hey, Donna, and Welcome! to G2G.

Glad to hear that you're helping you Mom on this. Sounds like you ran into more than you expected.
This explorer.exe problem is both difficult and frustrating.

If it were my system, the first thing I woud check is to see what happens in a newly created user account. User accounts is in the Control Panel, but since explorer isn't working, use Taskmanager to do a File>New Task(Run) trick. In the Run box type or paste: nusrmgr.cpl When it is open, select "Create a new account." Choose a name, and then give the new account Admin rights.

Next, log off your Mom's account and into the new one. This can be done from Taskmanager as well.
Under Shutdown you will find a Log Off choice.

The first time in a new account, it takes Windows a couple of minutes to configure it, so please be patient. What happens? Does everything seem normal? Does the explorer problem happen here?

Please try this out and get back to us with the results. Depending on what happens,
I will have more suggestions tonight when I get back. Perhaps others will respond as well.

BUT.

This might be left-over spyware, so before making tons of changes to your Mom's system, let's just take things one-at-a-time. If it is malware, G2G can help with that,too.
The most important thing is not to make it worse than it is already. At least right now you can "sorta" use it, eh?

[1101doc]

Hey, Donna, and Welcome! to G2G.

Glad to hear that you're helping you Mom on this. Sounds like you ran into more than you expected.
This explorer.exe problem is both difficult and frustrating.

If it were my system, the first thing I woud check is to see what happens in a newly created user account. User accounts is in the Control Panel, but since explorer isn't working, use Taskmanager to do a File>New Task(Run) trick. In the Run box type or paste: nusrmgr.cpl When it is open, select "Create a new account." Choose a name, and then give the new account Admin rights.

Next, log off your Mom's account and into the new one. This can be done from Taskmanager as well.
Under Shutdown you will find a Log Off choice.

The first time in a new account, it takes Windows a couple of minutes to configure it, so please be patient. What happens? Does everything seem normal? Does the explorer problem happen here?

Please try this out and get back to us with the results. Depending on what happens,
I will have more suggestions tonight when I get back. Perhaps others will respond as well.

BUT.

This might be left-over spyware, so before making tons of changes to your Mom's system, let's just take things one-at-a-time. If it is malware, G2G can help with that,too.
The most important thing is not to make it worse than it is already. At least right now you can "sorta" use it, eh?

[donnahamann]

I did what you suggested, but it still does the same thing. As far as spyware goes, I was already in the middle of running all of the "read this before posting a hijackthis log" steps. I am basically finished with that other than posting a hijack this log. It found a ton of stuff but deleted/quarantined it all. Not sure if there might be other things that those steps don't catch. Let me know if you have any more suggestions later. thanks for you help.

[1101doc]

Just post your log in that forum, and when your malware helper gives you a clean bill of health, post back here with any problems that remain and we will assist in getting it all sorted. With malware present, making further changes is really futile, and may even mess things up more.

Good luck, and happy hunting.

[donnahamann]

Hello. I finally finished taking care of any malware that might be causing this problem. The person helping me has very thorougly checked for all signs of malware and cleared everything up.

I am still having the same problem as described above. Thanks for any help.

Here is a link to the topic detailing everything we did in the malware forum:
http://www.geekstogo...70#entry1052270

[1101doc]

Next step is to check for hardware issues at boot. Disconnect all usb devices and reboot.
Any change?

[donnahamann]

no change

[1101doc]

OK. I know that you have spent a lot of time and energy on this so far, and I am very glad that malware is not at issue. We are dealing with a Windows/computer interface and that can have so many factors.... Since it was not that long ago that the Repair install was performed, perhaps it would be best to do it again. It is possible that not all files were properly installed or arranged.

Please to take Rorsarch112's advice in the last post to heart and make the system more secure as well.

Edited by 1101doc, 24 September 2007 - 05:21 PM.