Boot up the Dell CD it will not begin automatically without a dire warning and one of its options may be "Reinstallation" (repair install) of Windows only. Or even an option to open Recovery console.

The reason for your start menu problems is that Explorer is infected.

Mike

Ok so the cd I received can do a repair install from what I've read on dell's site so this might be able to fix the explorer and userinit problems? Everything I keep reading about repair installs always first warns to backup all files just to be safe and I'm paranoid so I'm trying to backup my files atm, Im having to revive an old computer I haven't used in a few years and use most of this computers HDD to backup my files. its taking me a while and I haven't really been around the past few days because we had some major problems at the lab I work at and have been spending overtime there on top of school but I'll post back when I have finished the backup if you think doing the repair install can fix it.

I think it will fix Explorer and userinit and get us back on the internet.

Put us back in control.

Mike

Well thanks for all your help flynn, however I tried the repair install and it crashed so I'm going to try a regular reinstall now that I have my data backed up and with my midterms looming this week, I hate quitting but it seems pretty useless at this point and seems like whatever did this has also infected every .exe file I have since as I'm backing up my data nod32 and avira is finding tons of infections. Thanks for trying though.

-David

Just recently in past couple of days a few that I advised DrWeb have cured almost everything.

So use that to scan your backups when OS is back up!

Mike

Ok thanks mike, also apparently my hdd and motherboard were screwed up somehow so i guess these infections were a blessing in disguise because dell just replaced both of them while only less than 30 days remained on my warranty!! who knew malware did some good for once if it wasnt for the malware I would never had known there was a problem and i probably wouldn't have noticed until after the end of my warranty.