Programs can't be launched, Recent Items empty, missing Control Panel icons

Hi,

I am not repeating the entire issue here. The subject says it all... Kindly visit

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33920059

Basically, 90% of installed apps stop working all of a sudden... the screenshots in that thread illustrate the problem.

Using OEM version of Vista Home Premium 32 bit + SP1 + all updates + latest patches for every app & driver

System free of viruses & spyware...

Please help!

 

Know this is probably going to sound crazy -- but your post said nothing was running but IE7. My experience SINCE installing SP1 is that IE7 causes my machine to practically come to a halt! It's not just CPU -- I also have a CPU meter running in the sidebar; it's more general than that. Once I launch IE7, I can do practically nothing else until I kill it.



If I use Firefox instead, there's no problem.



So, at this point, my bet is on IE7.