Program do not start

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.general (More info?)

"sdf" <sdf@ASD.DD> wrote in message news:432109aa$1@news.starhub.net.sg...
> Hi,
>
> I have this issue recently on most of my Windows 2000 servers. When I try
to
> start any application, be it Windows Explorer, Notepad, Task Manager, cmd
or
> anything, it just will not start.
>
> For example, I try to start cmd. After starting it, nothing happens. I can
> see the process running in the Task Manager using a remote program and I
can
> see the cmd process running. But going back to the physical server, there
is
> no display of the program. The only new application that we installed
> recently is McAfee Anti Virus 8.0i.
>
> Does anyone has any similar experience? Is there any tool that I can use
to
> see which process is killing the server?
>
> Thanks in advance.

In an attempt to get a handle on this problem, I would do this:
- Reboot the server, first in Safe Mode, then in Normal Mode,
and try to invoke cmd.exe in each case.
- Use psexec.exe \\YourServer cmd (www.sysinternals.com)
to see if the command processor can be invoked from another
machine.
- Compare cmd.exe with a known good copy on another machine.
- Perform these actions:
* Check if c:\temp.txt exists. If it does, delete it.
* Click Start / Run
* Type notepad c:\temp.txt {OK}
* Press Enter (in response to the invisble prompt about "File not found" )
* Check if c:\temp.txt now exists
- Invoke cmd.exe in different ways:
* Via Start / Run
* Via Explorer (it's in %SystemRoot%\system32)
* Via a logon script