Strange XP problem... forgetful Windows?

[Gammy]

Every time I reboot the pc it completely resets itself.

The desktop reverts to the default wallpaper and all my icons (with the exception of AdAware) are gone. Any customisations i.e. themes, appearance, disappear.

All cookies are cleared, and I have to sign in to everything manually as I don't have the passwords remembered. When I run firefox, it asks me if I'd like to import cookies from Internet Explorer- as if I was running it for the first time.

All programs act as if they're been run for the first time.

Any firefox plugins are gone

And the "Take a Tour of Windows XP" thing pops up


This has happened since I set Spybot to run on startup once to remove some spyware

My custom emoticons in MSN are gone, along with display pics.

And it takes much longer at the "Loading your personal settings" stage than usual


I suppose this is a good place to ask

 

[Gammy]

Oh and of course I googled but the best thing I could find was "Windows XP forgets my folder view settings"... I have a more worrying problem

 

[ShoobieRat]

Is this a work PC, or your own?

Either way, sounds like either you've got a completely bad install, or the registry is hosed. Put your Windows disk in, and tell the install to do a "Repair." See if the problem still exists.

 

[Gammy]

Is this a work PC, or your own?

Either way, sounds like either you've got a completely bad install, or the registry is hosed. Put your Windows disk in, and tell the install to do a "Repair." See if the problem still exists.

Thanks for the reply


I reinstalled SP2 and it fixed.
Said something about recovering a registry value #



That's that sorted anyway



Thanks for your time