XP Home applications not running

[spickee]

My brothers computer is having a fit.

He has got XP Home on it and has recently started having problems with it, he installed AVG following the end of his Norton subscription.

Now when he clicks on any shortcut or opens the run box, or explorer and tries to open a program he gets and error message, can't remember what now.

If he clicks on a file ie a pdf file acrobat opens, but try to open acrobat and it doesn't work.

He can open up, My computer, Control Panel, but none of the items in control panel.

I haven't had hands on so can't tell you much more, just that it was working fine before he took off norton and put on avg.

Any ideas?

[DocEvi1]

sounds to me as if the user's permissions have been changed...

Stefan

[spickee]

So why would the applications open up when you click on an associated file, ie double click a pdf file and acrobat opens up. Surely if the permissions have been changed then it wouldn't open up.

[DocEvi1]

it could be he doesn't have distinct permisson to run programs out-right, but can open files.

Tell him to check the gpedit.msc (from run menu) to see if anything un-usual.

Stefan

[spickee]

Will he be able to run this even though he can't run anything else, ie regedit, msconfig etc.

I'll get him to give it a go.

Thanks

[DocEvi1]

probably not. Get him to create a new user then (I'm not sure if you can do this in XP Home tho)

Stefan

[youlla]

The gpedit.msc feature is not available in XP HOME edition.

youlla