Right.

My mate had lots of spyware, so I reccomended HiJackThis.
I told her to get the log, sign up on http://computercops.biz/ 's forum, and post it. The guys there would tell her what to delete.

Unfortunatly...

She deleted everything the log came up with, and her PC is, how I like to call it, dead.

She tried System Restore (I think) to no help. Here is what she has told me:

No start menu, can't press ctrl alt delete, can't see any icons or shortcuts.

Probably a lot more things wrong, but I can't look at her PC, and I can't really explain what to do.

Luckily, she got on MSN, although any ideas what to do?

She can't run anything (Using the Start--->Run thing) as she has no taskbar.

Any help would be great? A last resort would be to reinstall windows, which is not good, I think her dad would kill her.

Normally Hijackthis does backups of the things it removes. Searching for these and doing the backup might be an idea.

The easy way would be to install windows over the top of the broken installation. It shouldnt change anything, it should just put a working installation in with everything intact.

Or, boot to safe mode and see if that helps. Its hard to say what wrong exactly, Theres nothing in my Hijack This log that I would expect to cause anything like this if removed. I dont suppose the log of what she 'fixed' is available? That might give us a hint as to whats wrong.

Dplax, how would she search for one? She can't get on Windows Explorer or anything.

[Edit]

She never made a log, she never thought she had to.

I told her to run in safe mode, see if it makes a difference.

Will post updates.

[ 02-10-2005, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: Ivelliis ]

I don't have Hijackthis installed right now so I don't know where it puts the backups, but it always is the same place, but looking around in safe mode as Andrewas suggested would be the best bet.

Repair/reinstall windows. That will enable her to go undo whatever she's done.

Sounds like some registry settings got messed up. Andrewas' solution seems the best idea. You should be able to boot from the windows CD and do a repair.

I also concur with andrewas. Booting fromt he windows CD and (R)epairing will fix it.

All your installed programs and data will not be lost.

IMO, this is one of the best features of XP compared to older versions.

It's been fixed, and I don't think her parents didn't find out!

Thanks for all your help guys!