windows explorer problem

as the title says, i'm having a problem with explorer. i did search the forums, but could'nt find anything that could help me.
anyway, to the problem. a couple nights ago, i tried using the gamegain program, unregistered version. i did'nt want to buy the full version yet, because with 3 kids, money's a rare thing to blow on gaming stuff, and i wanted to see if the benefit would be worth it. the installation went fine, and i used it while flying on FS2004. after about 30 minutes, i decided that the "gain", even though it was at its lowest setting, was'nt enough to wow me, so i exited fs, went back into the gamegain proggy, and clicked on its "restore settings" tab. after that i ran windows care v2 personal, then the wise registry cleaner, and rebooted my puter.
to my suprise, the taskbar and icons were gone. i had to use the task manager to get explorer to run, and as soon as i got the desktop back, i ran avg. it found that all of the files associated with gamegain were holding trojans, including 3 or 4 java files that were infected, but avg was able to kill them all. so after all that, i deleted everything that had to do with gamegain, then i re-ran windows care and the reggy cleaner, then rebooted.
when the computer came back up, the taskbar and icons were still missing. i used task manager to get explorer back up, but whenever i tried getting into anything (control panel, any folders, etc.) explorer will quit after about 10 seconds. i've tried just about everything i know to fix this (self taught, so that ain't sayin much), but can't get anything to work. i've tried to rollback the computer to an earlier date but can't, because all previous restore checkpoints are wiped out too.
windows malicious program removal does'nt see anything wrong, avg does'nt see anything wrong, windows care does'nt see anything wrong, but explorer quits as soon as i get into any folder at all.
i'm at a loss as to why, and i can't seem to find anything that can repair explorer. the microsoft site is'nt any help, since any search i run will only show me stuff for internet explorer. any help or insights at all is greatly appreciated, thank for your time folks.
grison

 

Welcome to Major Geeks
At this point, it might be a good idea to perform a safe reinstall of Windows. Boot to your Windows installation CD, and reload by using the repair option. Here's a link to a how-to complete with screenshots:
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/How-to-repair-Windows-XP-t138.html
There's a couple spots where some folks get mixed up: they can't get the CD to boot. Go into the PC setup (also called BIOS or CMOS; usually pressing F2 or Del at the power-on logo will get you there) and make sure the CD is set for the first boot device. Then when you see "Press any key to boot from CD....." you'll press any key. And the 2nd spot where some folks get mixed up is after the XP disc has booted, you'll be at a blue screen with white letters, and your choices will be "to install Windows, press Enter" and the second choice is "to repair a Windows installation, press R" and the third choice is "to exit, press F3". Many people press R thinking that this will start the repair. DO NOT PRESS R AT THIS SCREEN!!! It will drop you into the recovery console which is a DOS-like environment. Press Enter at this screen. Then follow the steps in the link I posted.

Good luck!

[dlb]
:major

 

thanks for the reply
the problem with this fix is that i got this computer from a little hole in the wall computer store about 1 1/2-2 years ago, and it did'nt have a boot disk with it, which is why i posted here to see if there was another way...
i do happen to have another copy of xp, but it's in a folder on the desktop and too large to fit on a disc.
i'm wondering: what would happen if i ran its install from there? would it overwrite the current xp os, or ruin things farther? would i also lose whatever i have added to the computer since i got it?
my better half (i.e. the viscious female) is getting ready to skin me, because she has mountains of music, movies, and pics of the kids that she can't get to.
i have gotten to the point where i can race the explorer shutdown event in order to get some quick things done, so if i do it fast enough, i could prolly burn at least the pics to a disc before explorer quits, but i wanted to avoid doing anything like that if i did'nt have to...

 

It sounds like you have a 2nd functioning PC.... remove the hard drive from the PC that's giving you trouble and hook it up to the healthy PC. You can either open the case and set it up as a slave drive (or put it on SATA2 or SATA3 if it's a serial drive), or you can get an external enclosure (under $30 at any PC store or online), build the drive into it, and plug into a USB port. Then you can rescue all the pictures, music, documents, etc, before she commits homicide. Burn all the stuff to CDs, tie ribbon around 'em, and hand 'em over with a rose, and a nice bottle of Merlot :wine That should keep the wolves at bay, and keep you out of the dog house until we can get the PC running normally again.

We can probably 'build' an XP install disc, or maybe copy the needed install files over to the other PC and run the setup from the hard drive, but that works best if the hard drive is clean....

Good luck! Keep us posted!

[dlb]
:major

 

eureka!
i could have avoided posting this thread at all if i had done something simple first, which was to install the latest version of avg (8.0) and let it have its way with my puter. it found things the last version could not...something like 4 major viruses and (get this) a little over 24,000 (not a typo) threats that had my poor gizmo jocked.
problem's all bye-bye now, and explorer seems to be running well, if a little miffed that i did'nt get 8.0 a little sooner.
dlb, thanks for your help, and don't be offended, but i'm glad i did'nt have to put it to use .
have a good'n all, i'll be lurking about looking for more geeky stuff from time to time.