Navigation + lost in XP pro

Got a tough one here. I have an HP laptop of a clients that suddenly lost a number of key XP pro abilities. When it boots up all icons on "any" navigation bar are gone. If you float the mouse over the icon area the pull downs are there. It has lost the start button, so I have to be shut down the hard way. Also the program and accessories section is gone from so I can't get into to system restore to try that rollback. Finally I can't bring up a run prompt either.

I'm afraid I'll have to do a full restore. All the data seems there and some programs work, others don't.

I know this is kind of vaque but and suggestions? Chris P.

:mad:

If you hit the ctrl / esc key combo does it bring up the menu? If it does put your restore cd in and in the run command type sfc /scannow and let it run through and repair system files.

Does this still occour if you log in with the default moderator account?

An over the top repair install should fix most of the faults which seem to have occoured by either a corrupt registry or deletion/modification of user accounts/shortcuts.MS updates not included on the CD will need reinstalling and a few shorcuts may need reinstating to the programs bar for non windows products.

You should be able to shut down normally using the CTRL+ALT+DEL menu

have you tried rebuilding the profile? Or tried to log in with another account, and if so does it do the samething?

What happens in safe mode? If you can get ti started in safe mode with networking and you get the normal screens then possibly virus or spyware related and you can then try an online scan.