XP boot up & run problems - DESPERATE!

[MarkDW65]

Hi,

I hope someone can help!!!!!

My PC recently started running very slowly - suddenly.

I have anti virus and Spy Bot, so I don't think this is virus related?! But I'm noo expert!

I re-booted, and logged on as another user (it's a single PC with XP Pro), things were still slow.

On boot up I recently changed the virtual memory settings from 256M to 450M as a message appeared as XP was starting up.

(The machine has 256M RAM physical memory).

All seemed ok and |I continued to work in XP, but after re-booting the desk top / XP is not running properly.

The user login screen still appears and seems to work OK.

When I've signed in, if I move the cursor over the task bar or to the "start" box it changes to the "sand timer" icon.

Programs that should run on boot do not appear in the task bar (although a couple of the flash screens appear as though they are running) - the clock has also now disappeared!!

The sign-in screen seems to load much quicker than before!?

All I have is a blue bar where the task bar and icons / clock should be!

I still have access to the short cuts on the desk top and they appear to work OK, but there's clearly a big problem!

The windows key on the key board does not call up the start menu, neither can it be called through the task bar icon.

As such I can't use "auto restore".

I hit delete on boot up and selected the cmos settings be changed back to last good.

But no difference!

I then tried pressing F8 on boot up and selected the last known good setting - but the task bar / start icon still aren't accessible.

I can't seem to find control panel to try and revert the virtual memory settings if it's that that is causing the problem?

Please help!
I'm desperate!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[snowmonkey]

That's very much sound like virus to me,, Think of it this way,, you computer is not a car the would ware out in matter of a week or two to get slower,, so something has been done to it something like virus, trojan...... Do you regularly update your anti virus ? What type of Anti-Virus ? if you have broad band Internet Access the download Pest Patrol from this site http://www.pestpatrol.com and run that on your system to clean it up.


cheers

[MarkDW65]

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply monkey, thing is I checked by logging on as a guest and the task bar is still there!

I'm re-loading XP - seems like the only option?!

If anyone has any other ideas - please let me know - INCLUDING how to possibly recover some of my lost filoes following the install!

Cheers for now!

Any more ideas anyone?????