executeables won't execute

[cmmsi]

This morning, when I booted up, I got a long beep and just about nothing more. After a shutdown and restart, everything managed to boot.

But nothing works. The start button won't stay clicked, desktop and tray icons won't launch; files that have recognized extensions won't launch their respective apps (e.g. *.xls won't launch excel) and the only way I can seem to bring up explorer is to click the find target icon on an icon's properties.

Apps will launch from the explorer window via right click and select of open, but then inside the apps, they don't function, so I can't open files/forward email/print/etc.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

 

[carrr]

See if you can apply this XP fix...fixes broken file associations for .exe's...

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/fileassoc/xp_exe_fix.zip

Here's the instructions from the site:

"Download the ZIP and open it. Extract the REG file to your hard disk and double click it. Answer yes to the import prompt. REG files can be viewed in Notepad. Each of the REG files contains the default settings for the file extension indicated."

Sounds like you got ripped by a virus, so as soon as you regain some funcitonality, better do a thorough scan...

 

[bcastner]

I am in agreement with carr, but do an antivirus scan now:

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

The long beep without start bothers me. Do a RAM test:

http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/memtest86/