Wierd prob...NOTHING will open....?

[Kruzin]

I got to work this morning, and was informed that one of my lab PCs is not working properly. Nothing will open. Dbl click on "My Computer"...nothing. Highlight a shortcut, and press enter...nothing. Choose a program from the start menu...nothing. Right click on any icon, and the poppout menu will show up, but when you select any option...nothing.
If I boot into safe mode, things will open properly. But in normal mode, not a single thing works. Can't even get to the dev mngr or control panel.

The system is a stock Compaq Presario 5204. It has a fresh (less than 2 week old) install on win98SE on it, installed from the machine's recover CD. The system has been running fine, until it started doing this yesterday.

Anyone got any ideas what the problem is?

[ALBPM]

EWWWWW a Compaq !!!!

Get a large caliber handgun and reset it...

[HomeBrewer]

First thing I would do is startup in safe mode and remove all programs in your startup folder. (Write them down so you can re add as necessary). If you can boot normally then readd one at a time til you find the culprit. If that does not work I would then remove/disable all hardware via the control panel. As above , if system boots Ok re enable them one at a time.

It's a start......

[Taz]

Does right clicking and selecting open work

[Kruzin]

Pauly...It may be a Compaq, but at least it's NOT an Intel

HomeBrewer...there is nothing in the startup folder...

Taz...No. Nothing will open, any way I try it...

[HomeBrewer]

Check the amount of memory available. Too little memory can prevent launch. Bad physical memory could be a problem but more likely insufficient virtual memory allocated or a bad swap file could be an issue. Just some thoughts, been a long time since I used 98 and memory fades.

[Pace]

Anything loading in startup besides the Startup folder?

[Kruzin]

I will have to check the memory situation when I get back to work tomorrow.
There are some compaq services loading, but nothing that hasn't been there for the last couple weeks, with the system running fine in that time. I'll try disabling some of those tomorrow as well...

[Ant]

I had a similar problem on a couple of PCs at work, they were infected with a virus.

[Kooldino]

I'd say to check the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run" folder to make sure it's empty.

If that's no good, scan for viruses.

If that's no good, scan the disk.

Then start disabling hardware devices one by one.

[Pace]

Yeah, good call, didn't think of a virus

[Kruzin]

I don't think a virus is likely, as the machine is not on the 'net, and has not been exposed to anything other than a few educational programs that I have installed on numerous systems over the months, without problems. But I will check that out as well.

If nothing else, I'll just reformat the system, and reinstall windows again (or more likely, I'll have a student do it like I did last time, and credit him for a couple periods of computer science )

[The PIT]

I've seen a case where you couldn't open aything by mouse and maybe not by keyboard although I'm not sure about this. It turned out that someone had turned up the double click speed to max and windoze couldn't respond to the input.
Safe mode was fine and thats where I reset it.

[rubank]

I think what PIT says could be the problem. The exact same thing happened with a machine at my work. With double-click speed to normal everything is fine.

[WyWyWyWy]

Yes but he said he can't choose any of the right-click menu options too!