Win XP sp2 Explorers (both of them)behaving incorrectly (inoperative)

[charco66]

Got a strange problem that has arisen in the past few days (running WinXP sp2). I keep a fairly tight ship running AVG pro and Spy Bot as well as Windows Defender and usuallly clean out everyting one a month or so (temp folders) or daily history, Internet files, etc. Every so often I do a defrag.

1. When I boot up the PC it operates fine for up to about 30mins then....
2. Windows Explorer can be opened, but any selection reverts back to the default 'My Documents' highlight immediately it is selected. i.e. it is impossible to browse the filing system.
3. Internet Explorer returns back to the homepage (in my case, google.com)
4. If IE is closed and reopened it opens to no page - i.e. it doesn't say 'about blank' there is just an empty window and although you can write to the address bar nothing happens, it does not even search for the url. All of the favorites URLs have the same effect, i.e. none at all.

On reboot everything is OK again until it starts to go awol after a random amound of time.

I researched the MS update pages and there seems to be some suggestion that this may have been caused by a security update in December (that would match the timing of my problem - the past two weeks)

Has anyone got any suggestions?

AVG, CCleaner, MG etc found nothing unusual. The problem is still there and I am tempted to reinstall the operating system.


This is becoming a nightmare, I have done more than a bare metal reformat, I bought a new hard drive and reloaded window XP sp2 and the problem is still here.

Windows Explorer jumps from the selected folder or file right back to the top folder (desktop) in the tree.

Internet Explorer just fails to find any pages and returns no error of any kind - just silence.

I am completely flummoxed. What can survive a new hard drive and new operating system? Is there any way that I have the bios infected with something? I know nothing about bios infections (if they exist)

Does anyone have any ideas???

 

[electronicsfreak]

Well if you did a clean install, its not a virus and does sound like some type of update. My advice would be to update all chipset and video drivers and see if that solves it. A bios infection to my knowledge would not cause that and yeah they do exist but are extremely rare.

Have you tried loading in safe mode and seeing if this still happens? Also have you tried doing a clean boot?

Perform clean boot

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[charco66]

The reason I think it might be a virus is that I have three hard drives. I only performed the clean install on the boot drive and the virus may have passed from the other hard drives to the boot drive when I opened windows explorer.

 

[MakeItSo]

Hi there!

Perhaps one of your (third-party) protection tools is colliding in some way with your explorer(s).
Try "Tools->Internet Options->Programs===>Reset Web settings" in IE.
If this doesn't help, perhaps a HJT log would be useful.
You can download HijackThis from here. Do a scan with a log file output and paste the contents here. This can help identifying troublesome processes.

Cheers,
MiS

[navy]"We had to turn off that service to comply with the CDA Bill."[/navy]
- The Bastard Operator From Hell

 

[charco66]

Thanks for your help MIS. I am currently reformatting and reinstalling the HDD with the other data drives unconnected. I will use the system drive to beef up the anti everything before I reconnect the data drives. I will then scan them using all the tools at my disposal. If all this fails I will be posting later this evening!

Cheers