IE/Firefox won't open.

Hey everyone.

Lemme set up the situation. I just had done the following:

Did a Windows update that installed Net 3.0 (I think thats what its called!)
Ran McAfee Virus Scan
Cleaned my Private Data in FireFox and IE
Disk Cleanup
Spybot (Found windows virus scan and firewall override as the only thing and I DID let SpyBot change it to the override)
Disk Defragment

When I restarted, you can still load any program except ones that have to do with the net, like Trillian, Firefox and IE. I ALT+CTR+DLT and you can see them "open" trillian.exe. firefox.exe, etc but they aren't loading. I did a CHKDSK and a sfc /scannow. Nothing seems to fix the problem. I also let it sit on overnight, hoping whatever wasn't loading would finally start, with no luck.

I get to the desktop but like I said, nothing seems to load. McAfee Security center still does but Windows DID prompt me that they couldn't detect virus scan or a firewall. I went in and under recommendations clicked I'll monitor my own though... Any ideas?

In addition, when I click to restart, the computer closes some programs, but it never restarts, I have to turn it off manually each time. I guess some programs are refusing to close or such. I know when I do ALT-CTL-DEL and try to end process on firefox or trillian it doesn't always close... firefox usually but I could never get trillian to, so I went into MSCONFIG and disabled it from loading. When I did that, though, it said it may not work cause I wasn't administrator or something, which I am. I also tried it in Safe Mode UNDER Administrator and it said the same thing, that it may not work because I'm not given authorization from the Administrator.

And in the spirit of full disclosure, for the past 3 days I Hotmail hadn't been able to load on my PC. On my laptop and other computers, it would but not on my desktop. Last night, it all of a sudden started working. Then I restarted it after doing all that stuff and obviously, I cant open a browser. Don't know if that has anything connective to it.

Thanks!

 

Can anyone help?

 

I think the first thing I would try is disabling McAfee Security Center and see if that might be the problem.

Steve