[Render]

Then your system is seriously messed up. I recommend you to backup your data and then reinstall the system.

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Did you read the edit of my last post? Firewall is up and running again.

Do you regard the start menu trouble as a threat rather than an inconvinience?
If it was only for the inconvinience I would probably leave it alone. If you advise me to reinstall xp because of security issues related to the corrupted start menu I will follow your advice.

[JoeDownes]

Did you read the edit of my last post? Firewall is up and running again.

Do you regard the start menu trouble as a threat rather than an inconvinience?
If it was only for the inconvinience I would probably leave it alone. If you advise me to reinstall xp because of security issues related to the corrupted start menu I will follow your advice.

[Render]

Sorry but I usually not read edited posts.

In my opinion your system is not infected but it is somehow messed up (corrupted registry and/or files).

[JoeDownes]

Sorry for the trouble. On each start up a security center alert pops up and notifies me that the Windows Firewall is set to off. It disappears without any action taken after less than a minute after it appeared.
Not infected but messed up sounds like unconvinient but safe. Is that a fair assumption?

[Render]

On each start up a security center alert pops up and notifies me that the Windows Firewall is set to off. It disappears without any action taken after less than a minute after it appeared.

This is typical behaviour for slower machines (especially slow hard disk). Security center is loaded before Firewall.

Not infected but messed up sounds like unconvinient but safe. Is that a fair assumption?

Yes. I would also uninstall Spybot S&D and use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware instead.

[JoeDownes]

I uninstalled S&D. I use commodo firewall and avast now, which works good on this here old laptop. I also installed no-script again, as I probably had a 'drive by' infection.

Automatic Update works again. So all is fine. Thanks a lot.

[Render]

OK. If you will have some additional troubles with your computer just send me a PM.

[Render]

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