I have my PC with XP Pro SP2 which no longer would not connect to some websites. Generally there was no particular problem when using IE Explorer (IE6), except when trying to log into a specific sites that required a username and password (secure sites eg hotmail, banking, forums etc). When the correct login details were entered, and the login button clicked, nothing happened, no error message, no screen refresh, nothing - the page just remained on the screen.

Poking around some more I discovered the following:

a) In IE, selecting Help>About brought up the version screen but the details for Version, Cipher Strength and Product ID were blank. This window could not be closed by clicking on the OK button, only by clicking on the window's X button.

b) When System Information was selected from System Tools, no system information was displayed (nothing happened at all).

c) When Search was selected from the Start menu, the search window opened but the window was blank with no input boxes or text, therefore it was not possible to execute any searches.

d) When User Accounts was selected from the control panel, the window that opened was blank except for Back, Forward and Home icons that were inactive.

e) When running Windows Update the Windows Update window opened but was blank. It was not possible to see if updates were due and none could be installed.

f) most of the system tools are not loading inc system restore

g) Windows Media Player no longer loads/works

Googling the problem uncovered this Microsoft link support.microsoft.com/de...px?scid=kb;en-us; 274696, which describes similar, but not identical, behaviour in Windows 2000, which is attributed to access permissions having been changed in the Dcomcnfg.exe tool. However, this may have nothing to do with the current problem on the machine (as it is different on XPSP2)

The system was scanned by Ad-aware and Spybot. Also Norton Systemworks2003 was uninstalled as the subscription has run out and it not used. Windows update was also run. I think that the uninstall of NortonSWks has stuffed the registry and or dll's as this has only happened since these 2 things happened.

There are no pop-up error messages.

I have run sfc/scannow and it had no effect.

I try to download/reinstall IE6 SP1 but get a message saying that a newer version is already loaded.

I needed a fix to get access to the web sites we couldn't access, I installed Firefox and was browsing again, no problems with it.

Can anyone explain and how to fix it?

If I have to do a XP SP2 repair, what is the best way, what info will I lose as Outlook Express is working OK with no problems.

Thanks

What is your source of XP? Retail CD or OEM? What disk(s) do you have? If the latter who is the manufacturer?

A Repair Install from a retail Microsoft XP CD should not affect any of your data. A good guide here with plenty of backup ideas:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Managed to fix it by simply doing this
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/useracc.htm

Go figure!

Thanks for the update and the solution. It might help others as well.

Glad all is well and let us know if we can help further in the future.