OK.

I've had at least 20 machines come in in the past week with the exact same symptoms. All systems are running Windows 98 except one (Windows NT 4.0).
Each machine will boot to Windows. It gets to the login screen and whether you enter the password and say OK or just hit cancel, the taskbar flashes up for a split second and then goes away. No icons are present and control alt delete shows nothing running in the background. The odd part is that the same thing happens in safe mode. Previously, I've just loaded Win98 over top and that will fix the problem, but I had several come back with the same issue within days of the fix. I've scanned for viruses and adaware by slaving the drive to another system, and they all come up clean. Anybody else see this or hear of it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and have a great FRIDAY!!!

Definitely feeling the need to drink large quantities of alcoholic beverages right now...