Services in Management Console not working???

I'm running XP SP2 with all updates, and for some reason today, my

messenger is locking up, and when I try to open the Services console

in the Management Console, it won't open.

I can also try Start > Run > and then type in "services.msc" and

nothing happens. In the task manager, mmc.exe is running, and I have

to kill it.

However, if I run mmc.exe, the management console comes up, and I can

load services.msc that way.

This is very strange, and I'm wondering what might have happened - can

it be that services or some other critical fiel has been corrupted?

Please let me know if there's a way to debug this. I'd hate to reload

windows over this.