T
thethinker_001
I have an old (6+ years) Dell desktop with Win 2000 Pro. I think it was fully
updated to about a 2 years ago, so I'm guessing SP4 is installed. It's just
been too long to remember and I can't find out because of the "Problem".
Haven't a clue where the install disks are or even if I had any - you know
Dell.
It has worked flawlessly always
This computer is a stand-alone and used by my wife in our business. I've
tended to ignore it for a while now, as all she uses it for is to check her
emails and read the news. It is protected by Norton AV (currently out of
date), Spyware Doctor (same), and Spybot. I have it set up with rather
draconian settings in IE6 and OE. The office discipline is to never open any
email attachemnets if there is any suspicion of their origin, and never to go
"wilding" when surfing the net. This computer has never had an infection by
either virus or spyware.
She came to me and told me that the Spybot Teatimer popped up with a notice
that the registry was going to change - she doesn't remember why.
I told her to dis-allow and that I would check it out later. She said that
it didn't seem to properly boot-up so I told her to reboot. She did and it
still didn't fully launch everything in the system tray. I then looked at it
and the Teatimer alert came up for me while I was investigating. I also
dis-allowed, but forgot to note what was being changed. I checked the task
manager but didn't see anything untoward. I ran a scan w/NAV but it found
nothing. I had left the room to do something else while the scan was in
progress and my wife went back to her office, reported the results of the
scan, and then told me there was a warning screen about explorer.exe.
I came back to check it out. The screen was white with a notice that the
desktop was "off" and needed to be restarted. I pressed the button, the
screen relaunched, but everything except the speaker icon was missing from
the system tray. The quick launch tray was normal. But everytime I tried to
do anything, the "Explorer.exe has encountered... etc." warning screen popped
up and the desktop would go back to the white screen. I can get into the task
manager & the run screens up but I can't do anything. I tried to launch sfc,
end processes, launch the CP, you name it - I keep getting the "explorer.exe"
bit. I tried booting in safe mode - same result. Diagnostic mode - same.
I can get into the Safe Mode Command Prompt.
Bottom line, I can't launch anything, get into anything, nothing. Any
suggestions or is this FUBAR?
updated to about a 2 years ago, so I'm guessing SP4 is installed. It's just
been too long to remember and I can't find out because of the "Problem".
Haven't a clue where the install disks are or even if I had any - you know
Dell.
It has worked flawlessly always
This computer is a stand-alone and used by my wife in our business. I've
tended to ignore it for a while now, as all she uses it for is to check her
emails and read the news. It is protected by Norton AV (currently out of
date), Spyware Doctor (same), and Spybot. I have it set up with rather
draconian settings in IE6 and OE. The office discipline is to never open any
email attachemnets if there is any suspicion of their origin, and never to go
"wilding" when surfing the net. This computer has never had an infection by
either virus or spyware.
She came to me and told me that the Spybot Teatimer popped up with a notice
that the registry was going to change - she doesn't remember why.
I told her to dis-allow and that I would check it out later. She said that
it didn't seem to properly boot-up so I told her to reboot. She did and it
still didn't fully launch everything in the system tray. I then looked at it
and the Teatimer alert came up for me while I was investigating. I also
dis-allowed, but forgot to note what was being changed. I checked the task
manager but didn't see anything untoward. I ran a scan w/NAV but it found
nothing. I had left the room to do something else while the scan was in
progress and my wife went back to her office, reported the results of the
scan, and then told me there was a warning screen about explorer.exe.
I came back to check it out. The screen was white with a notice that the
desktop was "off" and needed to be restarted. I pressed the button, the
screen relaunched, but everything except the speaker icon was missing from
the system tray. The quick launch tray was normal. But everytime I tried to
do anything, the "Explorer.exe has encountered... etc." warning screen popped
up and the desktop would go back to the white screen. I can get into the task
manager & the run screens up but I can't do anything. I tried to launch sfc,
end processes, launch the CP, you name it - I keep getting the "explorer.exe"
bit. I tried booting in safe mode - same result. Diagnostic mode - same.
I can get into the Safe Mode Command Prompt.
Bottom line, I can't launch anything, get into anything, nothing. Any
suggestions or is this FUBAR?