Explorer.exe cannot start in non-administrators account

[ErezGur]

After several month of working with our XP (XP pro) using an
administrator account (for me) and a restricted account (for my
children), something went wrong and now the restricted account cannot
login into the system.

From the Welcome screen when I choose the restricted account (member
of the USERS group) a blank screen with the account desktop's
background is displayed (without any icon, task bar etc.) and nothing
happens.

When I hit the CTRL-ALT-DEL to lunch the task manager I can see that
the only task of that account is the taskmgr itself. When I try to
create a new task and run "Explorer.exe" it ends immediately, other
programs can be run (calc.exe, pbrush and others).

If I add "Administrators" to the "Member of" tab of that account –
everything works fine.

Any idea or hint on how to fix this situation?

 

[gpalmer711]

There are several pieces of malware that can cause this problem. I would
recommend following the instructions in the following article to create a
new profile and copying the data from the old profile to the new one.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=811151

You should then look at running some malware software as recommended at
http://www.palmersoft.co.uk/support/virusfaq.htm

 

[erezgur]

There are several pieces of malware that can cause this problem. I would
recommend following the instructions in the following article to create a
new profile and copying the data from the old profile to the new one.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=811151

You should then look at running some malware software as recommended at
http://www.palmersoft.co.uk/support/virusfaq.htm

Thanks for your reply, but I already tried it and it didn't help:
1. I've got the same problem also with new accounts (unless they are
member of Administrators group).
2. I scan for viruses with up-to-date virus definitions.
3. I scan for spyware etc using spybot.

Also, i forgot to mention that I'm using FAT32 and not NTFS.
Waiting for more ideas,
Erez