Any Ideas on these two problems

[The PIT]

Windows XP Home edition.

Removed tons of spyware. The student has taken his laptop away and I advise him to re-install.

Problem one. System restore just hangs. It creates restore points but if you run it the program starts and then just stops. Even in safe mode. No errors reported in the event viewer.

He did want to roll back to an earlier restore point so deleting system restore isn't really an option.

Problem two he can't search for files or folders. When you click on search it comes up but apart from the toolbar everything is blank. No errors reported in event viewer.

Under dos it complains that a directory listing under My documents is too long. Sadly we can't delete it as the file cannot be found.

[Wombat]

How much HD space is left?

[The PIT]

Good question I think around 15gig unless that was the other laptop i was looking at at the same time.

[Fat Tone]

My first thought was disc space. Try selectively removing restore points.
On the search thing, try waiting a few minutes...it could be off on a fruitless search for missing drives/shares. Try removing old mappings.

[The PIT]

Well I can't select anything since it hangs as it enters system restore.

[Fat Tone]

Do it manually?

[Kooldino]

Try a disk check on it...repair any errors.

[Nicram]

Don't use windows :P