Nothing will load on startup- windows xp home

I'm trying to fix someone's xp home laptop, and the problem is only the desktop wallpaper will load on startup. There are no desktop icons and no start menu/system tray. Pressing ctrl+alt+delete or ctrl+shift+esc does nothing. Right clicking the desktop does nothing either. If I leave the wall paper up for several minutes, it will actually log off of the user by itself and go back to the user screen.

Logging into safe mode does not work either. Trying to click either the administrator user or the regular user simply brings you back to the user screen. The "last known good configuration" approach did not fix it.

Is there anything else I can try here?

 

SP2 or SP3?

 

I don't know for sure, but it's most likely sp2. I guess there's no way to check outside of being able to log in correctly.

I'm guessing there might be something I could do with an xp disc, such as the recovery console, but I'm not really sure.

 

This could be a malware problem, actually. You should open a thread in Majorgeeks Malware Removal Forum. These guidelines will probably be of limited value in your case but this is the link. If you can't get anywhere with the malware removal manual just open a new thread here.

 

Also: do you have a bootable XP CD? A repair install could be necessary here. If for example winlogon.exe is damaged. Malware or not...

 

I can't really do anything in terms of malware removal, so I'm guessing the repair installation will be my only option. I do indeed have an xp sp2 cd. Theoretically, I shouldn't lose any non system data doing this, right?

 

That is theoretically right. Good luck. I called the manufacturer's support the first time I did it many years ago and the talked me through it over the phone. But it wasn't difficult, it turned out.

Remember that the repair usually will delete all Microsoft updates. Your PC will reverse to factory settings. So visit Microsoft Update. And visit it twice. It can't do it all in one step. Firefox can't do it - you will need IE5 or later for that but IE5 should be there since it's undelete-able. Also updating IE separately could be necessary.