Windows Explorer works for one user account, not the other

[tinkerlock]

I'm using XP home ed. I have 2 users set up, both as administrative. Everything worked fine until 1 week ago. At that time, a problem began which is only affecting one account. When logged into the problematic account, we can't open windows explorer. I have tried in all of the following ways:
1. From the start menu/all programs double click windows explorer
2. From the start menu, right click "My Computer" and click explore
3. On the desktop, create a new shortcut to explorer.exe and double click that. (While creating the shortcut, I can navigate through the directory tree with no problem.)
4. Start/Run "explorer.exe"
5. Start/Administrative Tools/Command Prompt; cd to c:\windows; type "explorer"
6. Internet explorer works fine for the internet, but I can't put any local path into the address line, such as c:\

All of these methods do work with the other user account I have set up.

I also tried creating a brand new user account and it is exhibiting the same problem.

Here is what happens when I try any of the above methods of opening windows explorer:
The desktop goes blank for a couple of seconds, then the wallpaper comes back and then the icons come back.

I did Ctr-Alt-Del to open up windows task manager, and in the "Processes" tab, explorer.exe is running. When I try to start windows explorer, the CPU usage for explorer.exe goes from 0 to about 57% momentarily. Memory usage for explorer.exe is around 10,868K.

In case it helps, my PC is an athlon XP1800+, w/ 512mb RAM.

Hope someone can help.

Dan.

 

[Lonman]

explorer.exe is also your shell program, that's why it shows up in the task manager. You can try this, put your installation cd in the drive, go to start> run> type in sfc /scannow

If there's any damaged system files that should fix them for you. Other then that I'm not sure what to suggest... wierd problem for sure.

 

[tinkerlock]

Thanks Lonman for the suggestion. It didn't work. I am not opposed to re-installing XP, I just hate using that as a sol'n to my problems. What if it happens again? I'd rather know why it happened and how to fix / prevent it. Does anybody else have any ideas? Thanks. Dan.

 

[Scoundrl]

I would scan for virii, then I would start killing off processes one at a time with the task manager and see if I could isolate something that way. If it works on one accound and not another it seems like it may be something that loads on the one and not the other.

Good luck
Ken

 

[tinkerlock]

thanks scoundrl. I gave up and re-installed xp.

 

[pskeen]

A file sharing program called WinMX (winmx.com) does something to XP when it is installed. What ever user the program is installed on is the only one that Windows Explorer will work in.

I discovered it last night when I uninstalled WinMX because they keep updating version so often and you cannot connect with an old one. I was tired of udating the program. After I unistalled the program Windows Explorer started working again under all users.