Always "logging off" before desktop settles

[Squiggly1]

I just got done cleaning all kinds of nasty viruses, worms and other malware off this computer with McAfee, Avast, and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. One of the viruses is known for attaching itself to all .exe files. There were over 500 items detected.

So now I start up the XP Home Edition computer, enter the user password, it says "loading your personal settings" for a second or two, then says "logging off". I can see the desktop wall paper, but that's it. No shortcut items have time to load on the desktop. So I can never get to the desktop. It just keeps getting to this dead end.

Any suggestions besides reinstalling Windows.

 

[mailpup]

You could try a Windows repair instead of a clean reinstall although I really think a clean reinstall would be better. I'm talking about a repair installation, not the recovery console. I believe that whenever you have a severe infection and have successfully cleaned your PC, there is a good chance that some important system files are missing or corrupted as a result. When you have problems such as you describe, that seems to bear that out. That's my 2 cents.