Windows XP Broken

[digerati]

A friend of mine has a Sony Vaio laptop with Windows XP SP2 installed. A few days ago IE has just been loading blank pages - completely blank with nothing in the address bar or page. Not even an "Error 404 - Page Not Found" comes up. Also Norton 2005 System Works has stopped functioning. She said that the only thing she did was to install MSN messenger 7 and she has since removed it. On startup and error "msnappau.exe - Application Error" comes up. Did a search on google and discovered that it was because of the MSN Toolbar that comes with MSN messenger 7. However attempts to remove the toolbar in the Add/Remove programs fails. No error message.

[I apologise if this is too long. Just trying to avoid the obvious questions.]

System Restore doesn't work. The microsoft management console also doesn't work.

Thinking a virus had been the cause I got out my toolbox consisting of Ad-Aware, Spybot and AVG. Ad-Aware and Spybot found over a hundred spy/adware and removed them all. AVG found 2 Trojans and removed them. I made sure to do full system scans about 3 times to make sure all was detected. Still no luck .

Searches on the web mentioned some "about:blank" virus - the symptoms were similar. However after delving through all the instructions, registry entries and removal tools it proved to be otherwise.

I installed Firefox to see if that would work and guess what - it did. There seems to be some major registry corruption with XP. I even tried re-installing SP2 but that didn't help either. I'm just short of reformatting/re-installing XP which I really didn't want to do.

So any other tips before I format the drive?

[juba]

Have you uninstall and reinstall IE?

[digerati]

Have you uninstall and reinstall IE?

Since IE6 is part of SP2 I just re-installed SP2. IE6 with SP2 seems to be a bit akward to remove.

[MiTcHiE]

Have u tried re installing msn messenger 7 and then choose the option to fix a previous install or just installing the application again then uncheck the option for the msn toolbar.

Also was it msn 7 beta or final release??

[juba]

Since IE6 is part of SP2 I just re-installed SP2. IE6 with SP2 seems to be a bit akward to remove.

I think its best to use Add/Remove Programs to remove IE, then reinstall it.

[digerati]

Have u tried re installing msn messenger 7 and then choose the option to fix a previous install or just installing the application again then uncheck the option for the msn toolbar.

Also was it msn 7 beta or final release??

Yes Mitch I tried that. It was the final release.

[digerati]

I think its best to use Add/Remove Programs to remove IE, then reinstall it.

I just tried it in the Add/Remove Programs->Add/Remove Windows Components unchecked the IE box and it went through. Funny thing is IE is still there - it just removed it from the desktop. Another weird thing I noticed in the Add/Remove windows components. If you click IE the size required is 0.0mb

[juba]

Did you reboot the machine

[Y@tta]

What is stopping u from reformating the drive?
Saved programs/doc?

[digerati]

Did you reboot the machine

Yes.

What is stopping u from reformating the drive?
Saved programs/doc?

No. I already backed up the data. I don't have the recovery CD that came with the laptop so I'd lose all the Sony Vaio specific software that came with it.