Problems with explorer.exe at start up & programs constantly fail

Hello, I've recently reformatted and re-installed windows xp home, but keep getting the same problems. For a while now every time I start up windows after the splash screen it will show everything as it normally would, but I have to open the windows task manager, close the current running explorer.exe file and start a new one to access anything.

If that problem weren't enough after installing some programs such as Itunes or 7zip, they will work on initial set up, but once there closed after 10 to 15 minutes they will fail to open. In the task manager under processes I will see the itunes image name start then immediately quit, where as 7zip just gives "unknown error".

I'm not sure if this is a result from a virus that may have gotten into my system, but I reformatted all of my drives: 2 sata 300GB hdd and 1 sata 70GB hdd that windows is currently on.

its not vital that these problems have to be solved, but they are still very irritating.

yep, even after I reformat. I would say that the start up problem started around almost a year ago, while the failing program problem started a month or two after. I've tried both xp home and professional as well as installing them on different hard drives.

error logs were clean on any system errors, only a few application errors. Only thing that might be system related was windows installer 3.1. That failed the first time I tried to install it, but was successful on the second time. But I doubt that, that would be the problem on the count that I've had this problem even before I tried windows installer.

currently, I have disabled windows firewall and have yet to install any type of av.

Disable all the unnecessary ones

or

Disable all but the necessary ones

Sorry I confused myself there for a sec.

^^How could you be on the internet while windows is installing?

So you mean after windows is installed, not while windows is installing.

gogekki,

Try this for a explorer.exe possible fix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938828

Upon researching this it appears to be a common issue with SP2 for Windows XP.
If you haven't tried it already, go and download SP3 and try installing that.

What I generally do when I do a clean install is:

1. Unplug my network connections
2. Format
3. Install Windows XP (I have SP1)
4. Install SP2
5. Install SP3
6. Install remaining system drivers
7. Install Anti virus software
8. Connect all network connections
9. Update Anti virus definitions
10. Activate Windows
11. Connect to Windows Update and download all available updates.
12. Repeat step 11 until there are no more updates.

I hope this helps.

I Understand and I apologize for over reacting.