Explorer starts and immediately stops

[Castor66]

Guys,

I have a user with Win2K on a laptop. When they (or I) login they get a blank screen. Explorer starts up and then immediately shuts down again. By using the 3 fingered salute I can get taskmgr up and run a command prompt. From there I can execute commands - some work, some don't. I've run Spybot and cleaned it out. I've booted to Safe Mode and the same thing occurs. I've run an A/V check with no problems. I've checked the event viewer and nothing untoward is showing. I'm boggled!

Any ideas?

Castor

 

[sicktrick]

have you tried re-applying sp4

 

[Castor66]

Yup - SP4 back on the box. I ran HijackThis and repaired anything that looked untoward - no joy. Now it's running stinger. After that I'm going to try the repair console. This is a weird one.

 

[sicktrick]

see anything weird in task manager | processes?

also maybe installling sysinternal's process explorer wouldn't be a bad idea, if possible

 

[Castor66]

Nothing dodgy loaded. I tried killing all the SVCHOST through process explorer and still explorer fails to start. It's annoying now. I bloody hate desktop problems! Roll on the 3rd of January when the guy who normally deals with these comes back. The worst part is that it's the MD's laptop!

 

[bcastner]

Possible non-malware reasons for this experience:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;256194

 

[Castor66]

Well, I tried everything I could think of and eventually gave up. I updated Win2K pro to Win2K pro (i.e. cleanish install) and that seems to have fixed it. I was totally stumped by that! Weird.