Odd problem....

[Panama Red]

Just cleaned out a badly infected XP machine. Used Adaware Away to remove About:blank and added latest AVG, Adware, Spybot, etc.
Removed 3 user accounts so machine has one user with admin rights and system boots directly to desktop. Upgraded to SP2. Problem is I can't open anything using the Run command. Nor can I open anything within the Administrative Tools. Same with selecting Manage after right clicking on My Computer. Same with Ctrl+Alt+Del. All attempt to open the requested item but the item is briefly displayed on the screen and immediately closes. When selecting Services from within Admin Tools, it displays two windows that close very quickly. One says something about a Security error and Active X. This problem existed from the moment I first started it up. And the problem has remained thru each upgrade/change. I have no trouble accessing any of the listed items when using the Administrator logon in Safe Mode. Searched the MS Knowledge Base and I can't get a clue what is causing this. Anyone have an idea?

[glc]

Just a guess - disable 3rd party browser extensions. Internet options, advanced.

Take SP2 off till it's fixed, you should not have put it on till it was working right and known clean.

[Panama Red]

No go, g. Afterwards, I reset all Internet options to Default. No change. Then I reran Adaware, Spybot, Registry Healer. Still the same. Next I went to safe mode. When I log in as Admin everything works correctly. When I log in under the user's name, problem persists somewhat. Services will open with the warning window titled "Microsoft Internet Explorer" with this text: "Your current Security settings prohibit running Active X controls on this page. As a result, the page may not display correctly." The other problem app's mentioned above all open fine in Safe Mode, both with and without Networking.

I also tried setting up another user account with Admin rights. Same problem so I removed it. I've virtually duplicated all the Internet Tools settings from my own machine to this one and it made no difference. Editing the Registry isn't one of my strong points, but I checked all the Internet settings there and compared them to my machine and they are all the same too.

I'm thinking now of removing SP2, doing a repair install of XP and see if that corrects the problem.

[GaryRouth]

Just curious, did the remove SP2/ repair install work? Did you add SP2 back on successfully later?
. . . Gary

[Panama Red]

Hey Gary. The removal of SP2 and repair install came off without a hitch but it didn't fix the problem. SP2 is back. I posted a HJT log earlier and it was clean according to Lobos. Check this thread:

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...861#post885861

[GaryRouth]

Does the computer still balk when running the Adminstative Tools except for Safe Mode Administrator?

If so, is SpyBot installed under that main user, and are the SpyBot default Internet Options loaded? [Since it does offer some fairly strict "locking" of option changes and is also restrictive for Active X]

[Panama Red]

As mentioned in the HJT thread I started, Gary, the problem cleared and all Admin tools/Run items now work fine. This following yesterday's update from MS. And, yes, Spybot was installed on the main users profile. The Spybot settings are the default settings.