Explorer eating 99% of system resources...

I left my computer running last night but when I came in
today I noticed it had been restarted, as it was at the
Windows login. Then Windows crashed and blue screened. (I
stupidly didn't copy down what the error was.)

Now I can get Windows to load, but the computer is
ridiculously slow, and I can't open most programs like IE
or system applications like defragmenter. It takes several
minutes to do any simple command like bring up the task
manager. When I finally did see the task manager, it shows
explorer.exe using 99% of the system resources, and the
CPU usage at 100%.

I downloaded stinger.exe (from McAfee) from another
computer and ran it in case I have a virus, but it didn't
give me any kind of report, and when I rebooted it is
still all messed up. I have Norton AV with automatic
updates already installed.

does this sound like a virus? can anyone offer any
assistance?

I got this - see if it will help you too

Try this registry hack to help speed things up:
http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/1209/



"Amanda" wrote in message
...
I left my computer running last night but when I came in
today I noticed it had been restarted, as it was at the
Windows login. Then Windows crashed and blue screened. (I
stupidly didn't copy down what the error was.)

Now I can get Windows to load, but the computer is
ridiculously slow, and I can't open most programs like IE
or system applications like defragmenter. It takes several
minutes to do any simple command like bring up the task
manager. When I finally did see the task manager, it shows
explorer.exe using 99% of the system resources, and the
CPU usage at 100%.

I downloaded stinger.exe (from McAfee) from another
computer and ran it in case I have a virus, but it didn't
give me any kind of report, and when I rebooted it is
still all messed up. I have Norton AV with automatic
updates already installed.

does this sound like a virus? can anyone offer any
assistance?