Hi Folks,
OOPS - I modified and lost the OP, rather than adding this post ! (Anyway the problem was a lockup where the start button and opening programs lock up, even on a very light startup soon after an XP reinstall, and the "solution" was to crash explorer.exe with the Task Manager. Likely this is IE8, very possibly clashing with Avira.)
=========================
After some stuff, the problem morphed to :
"When you start Internet Explorer 8, it opens and then closes immediately"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967896And I am very reluctant to uninstall 8, concerned that it may not play nice with SP3. (The famous Gates integration of browser and OS). I did try a reinstall over, did nothing.
Well this is a defacto solution for getting rid of IE, so I will wait a while and see if there really is a need for IE, using the Firefox and Opera "we are IE" elements if necessary (hmm.. Windows Update comes to mind).
If necessary, plan B is to either wait for IE9 or to uninstall .. in which case I would probably simply go back to 6, or possibly 7, rather than continually have these IE8 problems.
Shalom,
Steven