MsConfig and Paint not opening...

[StormX312]

I'm having trouble open up these two programs... when I go to open either one of them nothing happens, just a working in background icon for a few seconds. I open up task manager and it appears they are running though. I'll be damned if it's a trojan of some sort as I just formated my drive today and the first thing I put was anti virus and microsoft updates. If I rename them I still cannot open them. When I go into safe mode I can open them. I looked at my HijackThis logs, start up programs, and processes and can find nothing suspicious...

[StormX312]

Sorry for double post but I can open them only if explorer.exe is not running... I'm thinking it has to do with policies but I'm looking in the registry and can find nothing prohibiting those two programs.

[EpicLoad]

Are you trying to open the programs from the run command? Also, have you tried to stop the programs from running within the task manager (I.E. force "End Process") and then reopening the programs?

[StormX312]

Yes to both. They appear in processes however nothing ever appears, so I end them. With explorer.exe ended, I can successfully open both, with explorer.exe running, there is no way I can run them. I have Windows XP Home so editing policies is a bit harder... still cannot resolve this..