active desktop recovery, explorer.exe issues

[deb]

Hi all long time no see.

I've done a search on here but can't find solutions to this specific problem I'm having trying to fix my sister's computer.

She has an HP system, running XP Media Edition and no recovery disk was included with this system, obviously cab files must be on the hard drive somewhere in a different partition... I hope.

Here's the issues, first of all her active desktop recovery console started with an Internet Explorer script error window. I went in and uninstalled IE 7 and then reinstalled a fresh one from the microsoft site with success. But, the active destop recovery window still comes up when trying to get into explore, control panel and cannot open any folders at all. She can play her games and open programs from her desktop icons (she has desktop only running from her taskbar, icons are hidden on desktop).

I tried system restore by going into start/all programs/accessories/system tools/system restore but none of the dates were successful.

Before I try some other steps I want to get some advice from here any suggestions on further steps? Thanks in advance for your help.

[deb]

apparently this resolved itself after a spyware scan.