Win2k login process 'stalls'- unable to see icons

[arteye]

Since Wednesday, August 13, I have seen 8 Dell Latitude laptops experience total local login failure with both Administrator and user accounts. All seems well initially. There is the Ctrl+Alt+Del window which works fine, then the window appears for username and password... this is where the first change is noticed, the previous user's username is not present as it normally is on 7 of the 8 laptops (my own laptop was set not to show the last user's name...it is the 8th laptop)...
Once I try logging in (workstation only) the music chimes sound but the icons and taskbar never appear, only the solid color of the Desktop and a movable cursor. Same symptoms when booting into Safe-Mode.
I am able to use Ctrl+Alt+Del on that blank Desktop and select Task Manager. From that I am able to access the Registry but have not yet located anything out of the ordinary. Some of the newer 'backdoor' trojans have slightly similar symptoms but I have not located any of their settings within any of the Registries....
Any suggestion would be appreciated!!!!
More data: we use Novell Netware and Sophos antivirus

 

[karmic]

Heres something to try, seems you've already looked for virii but there may be with so many laptops affected the same way... when you log in, and get as far as it will go, press ctrl-alt-delete to get to the task manager. hit file, new task, type explorer.exe and enter.
this should load a new explorer shell.

hit the processes tab, you should now have 2 explorer.exe processes. kill the second one in the list. Usually the desktop will load at this point. run a full virus scan.

If you can now get to the desktop, hit start, run, and type in sfc /scannow (this will check for corrupt or missing files). make sure the cdrom is in the drive.

next, open a command prompt (start, run, cmd, enter) and type in chkdsk c: /f
it will probably tell you it will run on the next reboot.

if all else fails, run the repair from dos. I've seen this with virii and system corruption.

Good luck.

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