WinXP Home - Explorer "flashing"

Sony Laptop; XP Home SP2: this PC had a fairly brutal malware infestation and I have actually removed all the malware (I'm pretty sure) and now I'm cleaning up and repairing the residual effects of the infections... Anyway- here's what's happening; Windows boots up fine and loads to the desktop wallpaper picture pretty quickly and normally, but once the wallpaper is loaded, the icons and start button and task bar actually flash. They become visible for maybe 10-15 seconds, then disappear for 10-20 seconds, and this repeats over and over. If I open the task manager (which I had to re-enable after malware disabled it) and click File > New Task and type explorer.exe everything gets normal and stays that way for 30 seconds, sometimes up to a minute, but then it all disappears and we're back to the flashing. I have a script/reg file that re-enables all the default Windows services, running that didn't change anything. I've tried everything that Dial-A-Fix offers also. I have also tried a repair OS install. Is a format in my near future? Or is there a way to fix this?

THANKS!

 

Perhaps I should have titled this thread differently... I don't seem to be generating any interest with Explorer "flashing" so maybe I should have named it "Desktop comes and goes" or maybe "taskbar and icons temporarily vanish repeatedly" or maybe.....
Any help, suggestions, thoughts, ideas, or input will be considered and appreciated.

THANKS!

(yes, this is a bump but I was trying to camoflage it )

 

Try this: type in explorer only, without the .exe