Assuming my problem is caused by malware, my anti-virus program finds some and then I have it removed from the system. However the problem still exists.
Do the effects of some serious malware remain after all of the malware has been removed?
My problem is my programs fail to open. Control panel, Ctl-Alt-Del, MS Word, IE, etc. do not run. Windows Explorer does open up. But I can't open up any files or apps.
Here's one more question: How relevant is this error message: "Error loading Winsock2 library (WS2_32.DLL): A system call that should never fail has failed." Yikes! Is this malware causing my problem?