Control Panel Won't Open

My computer (Dell pentium 4, 1.78 Ghz, Windows ME) wasn't surfing properly do to my uninstalling adware which SBC DSL needed and then when I started using 'Comcast.net' the explorer bar didn't appear to be working properly. Then I was exposed for a good month or so. Then I started having problems. Also, just before the problems started that I've listed below, I installed a new program '1 Click DVD'

First: It wouldn't shut down all the way. Monitor would go off CPU would hum indefinitely until I held the button.
Second: I noticed a lot of programs running when I did Ctrl+alt+delete andwhen I double clicked them the 'not responding' window opened up. I began closing them all and things seemed to work better for a moment. And when I shut them off with selective startup things seemed to get a lot better. Programs that were running and suppossedly non-responsive: Ctfmon, Ccapp, P2p networking, Mmdiag, Fsg-4203, Msmsgs, Systray, Sndwarn, Wkcalrem, Osd, loadqm, Mmkeybd, Mdm. And the worst was 'Explorer' which was supposedly running and not responsive and when clicked on would bring up my 'turn off, restart, hibernate' menu. And then when I close that and reopen the ctrl alt delete window and double click 'explorer' again, it would open up the 'not responding' window and when I clicked 'end task' the blue screen came up saying windows had suffered an error and would have to restart and then all those things would be running again if I had tried 'normal startup' and I'd have to start all over.
Third: I decided to clean up my computer and ran "Spybot search and destroy." It found about 50 entries and cleaned them up. However it then said 3 entries couldn't be cleaned because they were "in memory?" It asked if it could be run on startup. I agreed and when it ran on startup it only found one thing instead of 3 and a subsequent scan said all was well.
Fourth: I thought maybe I had a virus that my expired Norton wasn't finding. I went to 'housecall.antivirus.com' to check. It said I was clean. I decided I would update my virus software. I didn't find 'Norton' very user friendly. I thought I would try the free trial of 'PCcillan.' It said I would need to uninstall my 'Norton' first. So, I uninstalled Norton. Things got very weird after that. Not all of my desktop icons were displaying. e.g. several things like 'internet explorer' would just stay with the little white window and title that appears at startup and is usually replaced with an icon. My control panel would open sometimes and sometimes just show the beginning white screen as though it were loading but never load and it would say '36(?) objects' in the corner. (This is what it's now doing all the time).
Fifth: I downloaded 'Backup4all' thinking I'd protect myself as I searched for answers. It wasn't user (beginner) friendly at all and I quickly quit trying to backup.
Sixth: I downloaded 'Registry Mechanic.' It found 1000 things wrong and fixed them or so it claimed. Things were getting weirder and oh yeah
Seventh: All this time my 'internet explorer' wasn't properly displaying my 'comcast.net' homepage - just a black screen. However other sites seemed to display properly. I used to have SBC DSL and believe that I may have uninstalled it at sometime and also last year it had not been running properly because I uninstalled some of its affiliated adware programs (as stated above).
Eighth: (presently again)I began to not be able to access internet pages by typing them in the address bar and began to not be able to access my control panel at all. My friend told me I had a virus for sure and needed to go buy a disk and run it. I found a 'Norton Systemworks 2004' disc laying around from my laptop and popped that in. It did a preinstall scan and said I was clean and then installed itself. When it rebooted however it said, "an unauthorized program is attempting to change the security settings" and that this posed a threat. It said it would try to fix it but then said it couldn't and that I needed to uninstall and then reinstall the 'systemworks' software. However, I can't open the control panel.
Ninth: My friend then told me that some trojans etc. are designed to work around the major antivirus softwares and that I should go online and download some smaller name free ones. So, I downloaded "Avast." and it scanned and didn't find anything and then I downloaded something from "Grisoftware?" called "AFG?" and it didn't find anything either.
Tenth: Also at some point an error message popped up from 'backup4all" but I think that was just a startup thing.

I really don't want to have to format this thing, however, if I have to then I need to first pull off the recordings ( about a 100 hours worth) that I have on Dell Jukebox (recorded with a small microphone). How do I do that. Also can I save my Photoshop programs etc? Photos?

 

A word of the wise Junque, Registry cleaning programs do more harm then good. Most likely when you ran Registry Mechanic, you ended up deleting some needed Registry entries.

First rule of thumb, is before running any type of Registry Cleaning program is to go in and backup your registry in regedt32. I would attempt a repair of WinME at this time, and if you can, try to do a System Restore before you made the changes and hope that it rolls it back.

Also, uninstall the SBC DSL Software that was installed with the SBC CD-Rom, due to with Dell's there have been issues with problems showing up in them. With your system you should have no problem updating to WinXP.

 

No. Can I save it to disk or something first? And how do uninstall when I can't open my control panel? Or perhaps I could use msconfig to do a selective startup and maybe then I'll be able to access it. How do I do 'safe boot?' Has anyone read cartoonwally's reply to this same post on the hardware forum (I didn't know where the problem lay). Cartoonwally said I probably have a virus and to download several antivirus progs (he listed them) disable system restore, boot into safe mode (how?), run the progs in his listed order, reboot into safe and run them again, and then boot normally.