XP suddenly crippled. Most services not started, taskbar/icons lo

[Guest]

I have a Windows XP PRO PC that suddenly is crippled. When booted there is a
long delay at the "Welcome" screen. Once it is booted and at the desktop,
the following problems exist:

1) The desktop taskbar and icons are locked. The Taskbar is lowered and not
visible. It cannot be raised or moved. Pressing the Windows key on the
keyboard does not bring up the start menu. Icons on the desktop are locked
in place. The only way I have found to run anything is to bring up task
manager and use the "run" menu option.

2) Event viewer issues. I can view the list of events in each log, but
cannot look at the details of any of them. Looking at the list, nothing
seems to pinpoint the problem except possibly a couple of USERENV entries
(but I cannot double click them to view the details).

3) Most obvious problem is that most of the normal services won't start.
Looking at the services that are set to AUTOMATIC, most are not started.
When I attempt to start any of them, I get the "dependency failed, blah,
blah, blah" error. I cannot choose to view the properties of any service.
If I try to, nothing happens.

4) Starting in SAFE MODE changes nothing. Taskbar still locked in the
lowered position. MSCONFIG in DIAGNOSTIC mode also doesn't help. Even
logging in as another user doesn't help.

5) Cannot run system restore since the system restore service won't start.

At first, it seems like some sort of virus. But I cannot find anything
(plus, this PC has Mcafee already, which, BTW, won't start now claiming
system resources are low).

Any ideas what happened. Client claimed it was working fine. They shut
down. When started the next day, this happened.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[the guru]

I have a Windows XP PRO PC that suddenly is crippled. When booted there is a
long delay at the "Welcome" screen. Once it is booted and at the desktop,
the following problems exist:

1) The desktop taskbar and icons are locked. The Taskbar is lowered and not
visible. It cannot be raised or moved. Pressing the Windows key on the
keyboard does not bring up the start menu. Icons on the desktop are locked
in place. The only way I have found to run anything is to bring up task
manager and use the "run" menu option.

2) Event viewer issues. I can view the list of events in each log, but
cannot look at the details of any of them. Looking at the list, nothing
seems to pinpoint the problem except possibly a couple of USERENV entries
(but I cannot double click them to view the details).

3) Most obvious problem is that most of the normal services won't start.
Looking at the services that are set to AUTOMATIC, most are not started.
When I attempt to start any of them, I get the "dependency failed, blah,
blah, blah" error. I cannot choose to view the properties of any service.
If I try to, nothing happens.

4) Starting in SAFE MODE changes nothing. Taskbar still locked in the
lowered position. MSCONFIG in DIAGNOSTIC mode also doesn't help. Even
logging in as another user doesn't help.

5) Cannot run system restore since the system restore service won't start.

At first, it seems like some sort of virus. But I cannot find anything
(plus, this PC has Mcafee already, which, BTW, won't start now claiming
system resources are low).

Any ideas what happened. Client claimed it was working fine. They shut
down. When started the next day, this happened.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

There were some major critical updates issued this week. My wife's
laptop has started running like treacle. I'm going to restore from a
backup created before this occurred, and see if that helps.

The PC Guru: www.the-pc-guru.com