Re: wounded XP



"Daave" wrote:

"wyocowboy" <wyocowboy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:68217044-500B-42DD-A45A-B7F7B3EA0C30@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


"Daave" wrote:

wyocowboy wrote:
"Daave" wrote:

wyocowboy wrote:

The machine had been working fine until the other day when the
customer saw the screen saver "in use and locked" prompt, hit OK
to
go back in and found that things weren't working.

Well, I think we have a probable cause. :-)

Was this a screensaver that came with Windows,
or was it one which had
been downloaded from the Net?

Can you disable the screensaver?

Have you scanned for viruses and other malware either in Safe Mode
or
from a boot disk?

Did you run under another profile?

Did you try altering the policy settings mentioned here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q292504

Additionally, check if the same values are found in:


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Ex
plorer

hth

--
Dave


Most of your questions are already answered in my previous
responses.
I did check out the explorer policy settings - are you saying that
they don't get reset from an xp repair reinstall? Not sure how
start
menu settings would prevent programs from running from the comand
line...

I didn't see that you checked for viruses or spyware (perhaps I
missed
it).

Anyway, Googling, I found:

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsupdate/msg/ebf8aa88476f1c33

A repair install *should* work, provided it has SP2. Otherwise, you
might as well backup data, format, and perform a clean install.



Yes, there are a number of google hits on the missing start button,
but so
far, none of them have applied to this situation.

As I stated, a repair reinstall did not work.

Yes, I know. (But was it from a disk containing SP2?)

Yes.



Anyway, it looks like a clean install is in order (assuming your
situation is not related to malware--I'm not sure whether or not we have
ruled that out).

Even if it is related to malware, it looks like a clean reinstall. Hard to
rule malware out when you can't run any of the customary tools. Manually
parsing the registry looking for an infection is such a PITA that I don't do
it anymore.

.